The six apps of Hannukah

For my presentation on December 5th, I only found a few Hanukkah apps for the iPad and nothing for the Mac itself.

Well, Lex Friedman of Macworld found six iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch apps for Hanukkah.

Mazel tov, everyone. Happy Hanukkah!

Tom Briant

Editor and Media Manager, MacValley UG

Chris Breen on putting music throughout your dwelling, where to find decent tunes (James Brown Christmas?)

I have to recommend this Macworld.com article by Chris Breen He clues you in on how to get a James Brown Holiday station from Pandora, among other things.

Chris mentions AirPlay as the way to spread holiday music throughout your dwelling, but only mentions hardware solutions. I would just add that you can use a Mac running AirServer to listen to your tunes via AirPlay. from another Mac running iTunes. Heck, you can even use a Windows machine running AirServer in a pinch!

Tom Briant

Editor and Media Manager, Macvalley UG

Articles on various topics and their links, all contributed by Arnold Woodworth our VP

Google ad revenue surpasses all of print media

The graph tells a more important story.

http://investing.covestor.com/2012/11/google-ad-revenue-surpasses-all-of-print-media

Google Rakes In More Ad Dollars Than U.S. Print Media

http://www.statista.com/topics/1001/google/chart/709/google-s-ad-revenue-since-2004/

http://www.naa.org/Trends-and-Numbers/Advertising-Expenditures/Quarterly-All-Categories.aspx

1991 - 2011 Magazine Advertising Pages

Notice that the decline from 2007 to 2009 was vastly worse than from 2000 to 2001.

http://www.magazine.org/insights-resources/research-publications/trends-data/magazine-industry-facts-data/1991-2011-magazine

Amazon's free-shipping policies extend to 1,000-pound items

Example:  a 1,509-pound safe.

"We charge customers around $700 to ship this safe, but when they buy it through Amazon they get it shipped for free," says Pasquale Murena

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-elephant-in-amazons-mail-room-2012-11-28

Microsoft has Failed

The death spiral for Microsoft is in full effect, and management is speeding it up.

http://semiaccurate.com/2012/11/14/microsoft-has-failed/

Using external displays and keyboards with notebooks, such as the MacBook Pro

A friend of mine at work wants to get a Mac. They would like an all-in-one Mac including a DVD burner, so that limits them to the MacBook Pro with Standard display.

They expressed qualms and doubts about the MBP at home. They would like a nice big display at home and a keyboard like the ones at work. Apple’s flat notebook keyboard doesn’t let them type very fast, compared to the keyboards on the Dells at work.

“Okay,” I wrote back to them via e-mail, “Just plug in the keyboard of your choice. Plug in the monitor of your choice, even a big-screen HDMI TV.”

“Wait, What!? You don’t have to settle for what Apple gave you in terms of keyboards and screens? How difficult is this to pull off?”

“You may need a hardware adaptor which can cost $20, but you don’t need to install drivers or muck about in the Terminal. It truly is Plug and Play!”

“Do I have to use an Apple product? Don’t they charge more?”

“No, you can use a monitor you bought at Staples and a USB keyboard and mouse you bought at Rite-Aid”

“Where did you learn about this? On some hacker’s Web site from Russia?”

“No, Apple states it right on the product page:

Ports with possibility.

With the Thunderbolt port, you can daisy-chain as many as six devices — including an Apple Thunderbolt Display and Mini DisplayPort peripherals — to create a full-fledged workstation. And with support for video and eight-channel audio, it’s easy to connect HDMI-compatible devices — like your TV and home stereo — using an HDMI adapter (sold separately). Current VGA, DVI, and DisplayPort adapters are also supported.

Two USB 3 ports let you access a pipeline that’s up to 10 times faster than USB 2. And your USB 2 devices can still plug right in. If you have devices that use FireWire 800, there’s a port for that, too. And an SDXC card slot that supports up to 64GB cards makes it a snap to transfer all those photos to and from your MacBook Pro, so you can edit and share them on the spot.”

If you buy a monitor from Staples or Office Depot or Best Buy or Frys, you’ll get a monitor with DVI, VGA, and maybe HDMI ports. DVI is the one you want to use to connect to your MacBook Pro.

This is the adapter you want to buy at the Apple Store. Yes, they charge too much for it at $29.00

Now where do you want to plug it in? You plug it into the port marked Thunderbolt, which doubles as a Mini Display Port.

Now how to set it up.

You go to System Preferences, which look like a gearbox in your Dock.

Click on it to bring up all the Preference Panes. In the second row of Preferences, the Hardware row, you’ll find Display with the icon of a flat-panel LCD display.

Click on it and you’ll get this page on your screen:

Note: This is not the whole page, but just the relevant elements for this article.

Anyway, you see a display of the displays. In my case, I have two displays, the main one and an auxiliary one to the right.

Now how can you tell which one is the main display? Look for the thin white bar at the top of the display. That indicates this display has custody of the Menu Bar.

Now a trick. You can move the Menu Bar to the other display. Just click and drag the thin white bar from one display on the screen to another one.

Voila! You have the Menu Bar on your other display.

Now the displays normally work as one big display, where you can drag programs and files from window to window. If you want to display your work on a projector, you would click on the “Mirror Displays” checkbox. You now have a display for yourself and the same display up on the projected screen.

Use the keyboard you brought with you

Now for the keyboard. You really just need a USB keyboard that you can get from many sources. As I said, I’ve even seen them in the office supply aisle at the Rite-Aid drug store. Something to think about if your keyboard dies at an inconvenient hour.

Does it have to have an Apple layout? No, you can work with a Windows keyboard. Just mentally substitute the Windows key for the Apple Command key. The Alt key works as the Option Key. The Control key is still the Control key.

Apple does have a Preference Pane for keyboards, but it’s to set up keyboard shortcuts and to set up a Bluetooth keyboard.

As for mice, any two-button USB mouse works fine. Just plug it into a USB port, such as one on the keyboard if available.

I’ll have a second article later about changing keyboard key assignments to make a stock Windows keyboard more Mac-like and finding a cheaper monitor adapter on-line.

What I have just told you is not new. It’s not unique to Apple. In fact, I have an old Toshiba DOS/Windows 3.1 notebook from 1994 which has a couple of PS/2 ports for the keyboard and mouse on the right-hand side and a VGA port in the back to plug in the external monitor.

All images courtesy of Apple, Inc. Thank you very much and please don’t sue me!

Tom Briant

Editor and Media Manager, MacValley UG

Apple releases iTunes 11 on schedule and making a feature length film with an iPad 2 as your camera and Nisus Writer Pro and Express on sale!

Apple made its self-imposed deadline of November 30th and released the latest version of iTunes, #11, on Thursday the 29th. It continues Apple’s trend of iPadification of its Mac apps. In other words, if you’ve used Music on your iPad; you’ve seen a preview of the new iTunes.

We here at MacValley Labs just installed it last night and haven’t had time to do a full review of it yet. We can tell you that it doesn’t open in List view like the previous versions did.

While on the topic of deadlines, today is the day Apple promised the 21.5” iMac would be available. We have to make a trip to the Apple Store to get something for the forthcoming presentation at the December meeting December 5th, and we’ll try to check out the new iMac.

Now to the topic of deals. Nisus has put Nisus Writer Pro on sale for $59 and Nisus Writer Express on sale for just $25! Excellent value in word processing.

Finally, if you’ve thought about making a feature length film and have an iPad, check out this article at Mac|LIfe about making a film using an iPad 2 as the camera. What?! Check it out, you budding Spielbergs and Scorseces!

And “one more thing”. Atari-yes, they still exist-has put out a version of Pong for the iPad and iPhone. It’s been 40 years and trillions of dollars in quarters since Pong was first released.

Tom Briant

Editor and Media Manager, MacValley UG

Apple releases iTunes 11 on schedule and making a feature length film with an iPad 2 as your camera and Nisus Writer Pro and Express on sale!

Apple made its self-imposed deadline of November 30th and released the latest version of iTunes, #11, on Thursday the 29th. It continues Apple’s trend of iPadification of its Mac apps. In other words, if you’ve used Music on your iPad; you’ve seen a preview of the new iTunes.

We here at MacValley Labs just installed it last night and haven’t had time to do a full review of it yet. We can tell you that it doesn’t open in List view like the previous versions did.

While on the topic of deadlines, today is the day Apple promised the 21.5” iMac would be available. We have to make a trip to the Apple Store to get something for the forthcoming presentation at the December meeting December 5th, and we’ll try to check out the new iMac.

Now to the topic of deals. Nisus has put Nisus Writer Pro on sale for $59 and Nisus Writer Express on sale for just $25! Excellent value in word processing.

Finally, if you’ve thought about making a feature length film and have an iPad, check out this article at Mac|LIfe about making a film using an iPad 2 as the camera. What?! Check it out, you budding Spielbergs and Scorseces!

And “one more thing”. Atari-yes, they still exist-has put out a version of Pong for the iPad and iPhone. It’s been 40 years and trillions of dollars in quarters since Pong was first released.

 

Tom Briant

Editor and Media Manager, MacValley UG

The new iMacs are coming and a really cool free app for your iPad

1. 1.The 21.5” Macs promised for the end of November will make it to the Apple Store. On Friday, November 30. You can order the 27” iMacs on-line, but you have to wait for their delivery until December.
2. 2.Will Apple make the same Friday deadline for iTunes 11? What version of OS X and what machine will you need to run it?
3. 3.If you want to prove to a friend that we're truly living in the future, look no further than Air Display, an innovative iOS app capable of extending your Mac or Windows desktop using an iPad.Avatron Software has introduced Air Display Free, an ad-supported version of its popular app which extends the desktop of any Mac or Windows computer onto any Wi-Fi enabled iPad, complete with Retina Display quality, when available

Helpful Hints for changing a lost administrative password and dealing with Super-Duper and more!

How’s the shopping going out there? I wouldn’t venture near the malls in Canoga Park/Woodland Hills right now. A lot of shoppers fiercely determined to get the best value and brooking no opposition. Besides, finding a parking place would be murder.

I did do some shopping from work on Black Friday. I bought the version of Office 2011 for the Mac with Outlook for Mac, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. I got it for $9.95 and downloaded it when I got home from work.

Now if you think I’m dealing with some pirate outfit, no, no, that’s not the case. Microsoft has a Home Use Program, where employees of corporate customers can buy Office for either PC or Mac at this price. I took advantage of it to put Office 2010 on my PC and now it’s time for my Mac.

The best part? Microsoft allows you to have two installs from the downloaded installer. This means you could put the program on your kid’s computer, too.

The opening screen of the Home Use Web site shows Office 2010. Go under Other Products for Office 2011 for the Mac.

Now Office 2011 works on Intel Macs running at least 10.5.8 with 1 Gb of RAM and 2.5 GB of available hard drive space. Full system requirements here.

Now let’s suppose you went on eBay or Craigs List or got your brother-in-law’s old Mac. You got an Intel Mac at a good price. When it arrives, though, you need to change the administrative password. If you’re running 10.6 or less, Apple tells you to get a copy of the installation disk.

But you don’t have the installation disk the morning you exchange gifts.Your brother-in-law left town to party in Vegas. What do you do? Well, you follow the sage wisdom of Mac Yourself on how to change the administrative password without an installation disk. They’ve gathered how to do this for 10.4 through 10.8.

Finally, a tip from my own experience. I’ve used the cloning program Super-Duper! since OS X 10.3. I got it on the advice of Ken Gruberman and Elena-Beth Kaye. It works! But lately, I’ve had problems…

The problems occur due to conflicts between Super-Duper! and an anti-virus program I installed. I solved the problem by running Super-Duper! under Safe Boot mode. Safe Boot mode temporarily disables all those program that would otherwise automatically start when you boot up.

You get to Safe Boot mode by restarting your Mac, listening for the BONGG! sound and then immediately pressing the Shift key. I press the left Shift key myself. The Mac will then go through extra steps. Finally you arrive at the Safe Boot log-in screen.

This is the OS X 10.4 “Tiger” Safe Boot screen from my MacBook.

This is the Safe Boot screen from my Mac Mini running 10.8.2. Notice that the Safe Boot message is in Red and in the upper right-hand corner.

Boot into Safe Mode to run Super-Duper! When you finish backing up or cloning a hard drive, you can just restart the Mac from the Apple menu. You’ll return to full functionality.

See you at the December meeting Wednesday, December 5th, at 7:30 PM. You’ll find Holiday Goodies on the table and Holiday Apps demonstrated on screen.

News from Apple and M$ and AC/DC

First, OS X 10.9 is in the works. 9 to 5 Mac reports users of early builds of this have shown up on Web logs.

It appears to offer Siri to Mac users as well as a Maps application.

When will it hit the market? 9 to 5 Mac speculates that developer builds will come out in the spring of 2013 and consumer builds later in the year.

So what big cat will they name this after? Your guesses are welcome in the comments. I’m going with “Mr. Bigglesworth”.

Second, in what may be a sign of impending doom :), the Australian rockers AC/DC have signed with iTunes. They held out for a long time, but now you can get them in the iTunes Music Store.

Third, Macrumors.com reports that both Belkin and iPad Mini Mod have released keyboards with cases for the iPad mini. Belkin’s sells for $80, while iPad Mod Mini sells for $40.

Top that, Google and Amazon!

Fourth, Apple has announced its own Black Friday sale:

Apple has posted a teaser page on their Australian online Apple Store for a "one-day Apple shopping event" on Friday, November 23rd.

The one-day Apple shopping event is Friday, 23 November. Get ready to give. Shop online or visit your favourite Apple Retail Store. We'll help you make the most of the day, no matter how you shop.

This Friday represents Black Friday in the United States. Black Friday is the day afterThanksgiving that marks the start of the Christmas shopping season. Traditionally, retailers offer major sales on that day.

Apple's international online and retail stores also participate in these sales, though Apple's discounts tend to be very modest. Last year's discounts for Apple's core products were as follows (in USD):

iPad 2 - $41 to $61 Off

iPod nano - $11 off

iPod Touch - $21 to $41 off

MacBook Air - $101 off

MacBook Pro - $101 off

iMac - $101 off

For absolute savings, customers will have better luck with 3rd party merchants that tend to offer steeper discounts on Apple products on Black Friday.

Finally, Will the New iMacs arrive as scheduled?

Last week, a report from french site MacBidouille claimed that Apple may not be shipping their new iMac until early 2013, despite Apple's official promises that the new iMac models would ship before year's end.

9to5Mac now reassures us that Apple's original plans are still intact for the iMac. The new 21.5" iMacs are said to already be shipping to distribution centers, while the 27" iMacs are due in December. Supplies, however, are likely to be very short through the rest of the year.

Apple continues to list November and December availability dates for the new iMacs in their online store. Pre-orders are not yet available but are expected by the end of November.

News from Apple and M$ and AC/DC

First, OS X 10.9 is in the works. 9 to 5 Mac reports users of early builds of this have shown up on Web logs.

It appears to offer Siri to Mac users as well as a Maps application.

When will it hit the market? 9 to 5 Mac speculates that developer builds will come out in the spring of 2013 and consumer builds later in the year.

So what big cat will they name this after? Your guesses are welcome in the comments. I’m going with “Mr. Bigglesworth”.

Second, in what may be a sign of impending doom :), the Australian rockers AC/DC have signed with iTunes. They held out for a long time, but now you can get them in the iTunes Music Store.

Third, Macrumors.com reports that both Belkin and iPad Mini Mod have released keyboards with cases for the iPad mini. Belkin’s sells for $80, while iPad Mod Mini sells for $40.

Top that, Google and Amazon!

Fourth, Apple has announced its own Black Friday sale:

Apple has posted a teaser page on their Australian online Apple Store for a "one-day Apple shopping event" on Friday, November 23rd.

The one-day Apple shopping event is Friday, 23 November. Get ready to give. Shop online or visit your favourite Apple Retail Store. We'll help you make the most of the day, no matter how you shop.

This Friday represents Black Friday in the United States. Black Friday is the day afterThanksgiving that marks the start of the Christmas shopping season. Traditionally, retailers offer major sales on that day.

Apple's international online and retail stores also participate in these sales, though Apple's discounts tend to be very modest. Last year's discounts for Apple's core products were as follows (in USD):

iPad 2 - $41 to $61 Off

iPod nano - $11 off

iPod Touch - $21 to $41 off

MacBook Air - $101 off

MacBook Pro - $101 off

iMac - $101 off

For absolute savings, customers will have better luck with 3rd party merchants that tend to offer steeper discounts on Apple products on Black Friday.

Finally, Will the New iMacs arrive as scheduled?

Last week, a report from french site MacBidouille claimed that Apple may not be shipping their new iMac until early 2013, despite Apple's official promises that the new iMac models would ship before year's end.

9to5Mac now reassures us that Apple's original plans are still intact for the iMac. The new 21.5" iMacs are said to already be shipping to distribution centers, while the 27" iMacs are due in December. Supplies, however, are likely to be very short through the rest of the year.

Apple continues to list November and December availability dates for the new iMacs in their online store. Pre-orders are not yet available but are expected by the end of November.

Love for the iPad Mini-and a review of the Surface RT, too- Thanks again Arnold!

My love for the mini over the other iPads comes down to one thing: size. It's perfectly sized for every room in the house. It's perfectly sized for travel, where every ounce counts.

the build quality on the iPad mini is fantastic

http://venturebeat.com/2012/11/07/why-im-returning-my-ipad-mini/

Chris Pirillo’s Microsoft Surface Review

John Gruber thought this was a fair and comprehensive review.

Best line: “If you’re the sort of person who likes features over finish, Surface is for you.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQhhtvuZwVg

Windows 8 is just another way for Microsoft to show you ads

And the ads continue to play even if you pay subscription fees.

http://owened.co.nz/windows-8-is-just-a-way-for-microsoft-to-show-you-ads

Want to charge up your iPhone or iPad after the electricity goes out?  Such as after an earthquake?

Now you can with this hand crank generator.  Buy one before the big one!!

http://uncrate.com/stuff/eton-boost-turbine/

Russian Hacker Gets a Taste of His Own Malware

http://www.technewsworld.com/story/76519.html

Apple’s products say, “You can’t do that because we think it would suck.”

Microsoft’s products say, “We’ll let you try to do anything on anything if you really want to, even if it sucks.”

People who dislike Apple’s approach or whose requirements are incompatible with it will always exist in great numbers, and the Surface is for them. It’ll probably sell well, especially if Microsoft can expand their retail presence quickly.

http://www.marco.org/2012/10/26/an-alternate-universe

iPithy: Why the World's Biggest Company Speaks With the Fewest Words

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/10/ipithy-why-the-worlds-biggest-company-speaks-with-the-fewest-words/264126/

A yacht designed by Steve Jobs has been completed a little over a year after his death

http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2012/10/29/steve-jobss-yacht-completed/

The Yacht Steve Jobs Designed With Philippe Starck Has Finally Been Unveiled

http://www.cultofmac.com/198521/the-yatcht-steve-jobs-designed-with-philippe-starck-has-finally-been-unveiled/

Apple Acknowledges UK Legal Judgment That Samsung Tablets Are Not as Cool as iPads

http://www.apple.com/uk/legal-judgement/

iPhones, iPads, and not much else: How the mobile revolution drove Apple’s exponential growth

http://qz.com/20109/iphones-ipads-and-not-much-else-how-the-mobile-revolution-drove-apples-exponential-growth/

The Kill Switch Comes to the PC

Google …... flipped a little-known kill switch, reaching into more than 250,000 infected Android smartphones and forcibly removing the malicious code.

Google, Apple (AAPL), and Amazon (AMZN)all have the ability to reach into devices to delete illicit content or edit code without users’ permission. It’s a powerful way to stop threats that spread quickly, but it’s also a privacy and security land mine.

The bottom line: Kill switches can improve computer security, but they worry privacy and free speech advocates.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-02-17/the-kill-switch-comes-to-the-pc

Thanks to Arnold Woodworth, our Vice-President, for all these great links.

Tom Briant

Editor and Media Manager, MacValley UG

Catching Up with Posts-A lot about how to use Twitter more effectively with Hashtags

Hashtags -- General Lists:

Organizing the world's Hashtags

http://www.hashtags.org/

75 Top Twitter Hashtags

http://wearesocialpeople.com/75-top-twitter-hashtags/

Hashtags for the 21st Century

http://www.teachthought.com/technology/52-twitter-hashtags-for-21s-century/

A Twitter Page Dedicated to Hashtags

https://twitter.com/hashtagsforlife

Trending Hashtags

http://hashonomy.com/hashtags/trending/

Twitter Hashtags for Fashion and Beauty Bloggers

http://www.onewomansstyleevolution.com/2012/02/hashtag-101-for-fashion-and-beautybloggers/

Lists of Social Responsibility Hashtags

45 hashtags for social change

http://www.socialbrite.org/2011/12/27/45-hashtags-for-social-change/

45 Hashtags for Sustainability

http://sustainablebusinessforum.com/elainecohen1/58901/45-hashtags-sustainability-reports

30 Super Useful Nonprofit Hashtags – Twitter Chats, Too!

http://www.nten.org/blog/2011/11/08/30-super-useful-nonprofit-hashtags-–-twitter-chats-too

Lists of Business Hashtags

Small Business Hastags

http://www.macgetit.com/642/twitter-small-business-startup-entrepreneur-list-of-hashtags/

Top 25 List of Twitter Hashtags for Human Resources & HR

http://www.blogging4jobs.com/social-media/twitter-hashtags-human-resources/

35 Twitter Hashtags for Financial Professionals

http://financialsocialmedia.com/twitter/35-twitter-hashtags-for-financial-professionals/

Hashtags for #LegalMediaTypes

http://www.hellermanbaretz.com/sound-bites/twitter-hashtags-legalmediatypes

http://careerenlightenment.com/twitter-job-search/50-hottest-twitter-hashtags-for-job-seekers

http://www.social-hire.com/career--interview-advice/1081/the-top-hashtags-for-the-job-seeker

Lists of Education Hashtags

http://www.teachthought.com/technology/the-complete-guide-to-twitter-hashtags-in-education/

http://edudemic.com/2012/06/2012-twitter-hashtags/

http://elearningindustry.com/subjects/general/item/331-list-of-elearning-twitter-hashtags-being-used-right-now

http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2012/07/top-10-educational-technology-hashtags.html

Lists of Science and Technology Hashtags

Public Health and Science Hashtags

http://mrepidemiology.com/2012/04/24/epidemiology-and-science-hashtags-epid/

The Ultimate Green Hashtag List

http://greeneconomypost.com/green-twitter-hashtag-17290.htm

Engineering Hashtags

http://www.cadalyst.com/cad-hashtags

Most Popular Hashtags For The Healthcare Industry

http://www.hashtags.org/platforms/twitter/most-popular-hashtags-for-the-healthcare-industry/

30 Hashtags for Science Lovers

http://edudemic.com/2012/09/30-twitter-hashtags-science-lovers/

Lists of Hashtags for Writers

44 Essential Hashtags Every Author Should Know

http://www.authormedia.com/2012/01/24/44-essential-twitter-hashtags-every-author-should-know/

40 Twitter Hashtags for Writers

http://www.dailywritingtips.com/40-twitter-hashtags-for-writers/

Hashtags for Writers, Authors, and Self-Publishers

http://selfpublishingresources.com/twitter-hashtags-for-writers-authors-and-self-publishers/

Hashtags for Writers

http://richlycoloredmask.blogspot.com/2012/10/twitter-hashtags-for-writers.html

Top Twitter Hashtags for Bloggers

http://www.blogelina.com/2011/04/top-twitter-hashtags-for-bloggers/

The iPad Mini Is The Ideal Second Screen Companion

The iPad mini’s size makes it a take-anywhere device

http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/04/the-ipad-mini-is-the-ideal-second-screen-companion/

Apple sells three million iPads in three days

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/apple-sells-three-million-ipads-in-three-days-2012-11-05-891536

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/apple-sells-3-million-ipads-since-launch-of-mini-2012-11-05

Tom Briant

Editor and Media Manager, MacValley UG

A Trip to the Microsoft pop-up store to see the Surface RT tablet

First, the Microsoft pop-up store. It’s a simple square with a tall sign showing the new Microsoft logo. I saw the sign as I walked through the JC Penny close to the MS store. The MS Store itself is set up in the middle of the floor in front of JC Penny at the Glendale Galleria.

I saw several Surface tablets set up. The tablet is set up on the tablet in landscape orientation. The cover that doubles as a keyboard came attached to it in front.

Face it, it’s a netbook with a touch screen. I didn’t want to buy it. With the cover with molded keys, it felt like trying to type on a brick.

The young sales associate who answered my questions was totally professional. MS, the problem is not the people; it’s how you set up the product. You don’t set up a tablet for display by attaching a mediocre keyboard to it. You attach a lanyard to it and let people touch it.

I asked how the Surface connected to a printer. The sales associate told me that you would use a USB wired connection or a Bluetooth pairing. I asked about using a Wi-Fi printer with it. They said it would work, but I did not feel satisfied.

I saw another person looking at the tablet, so I excused myself and headed up to the Apple store.

Second, The Apple Store at the Glendale Galleria. Now this place was busy. Not too busy to answer my question, “Where’s the iPad Mini?”

It was right behind me. I saw it when I entered the store, but I expected the iPad Mini to be much smaller and heavier. I’m thinking of my iPad Classic’s size and weight.

To my delight, the device has a much bigger screen than I anticipated and it weighed much less than I feared. I fell in love with it. I want one. If I had the money, I would have taken whatever they had in stock.

I overheard conversation between the staff. They only had the black 32 Gb model left. Jump on it, people. People are falling in love with this cute little fella at first touch.

I still remember that CNN.com correspondent at a loss for words about the iPad Mini. What would people use it for? Just take them up to the nearest Apple Store, put an iPad Mini in their hands, and stand back.

Now excuse me, I have a game of Tiny Wings to get back to.

Tom Briant

Editor and Media Manager, MacValley UG

Important Apple iMac Hard Drive recall information

Thanks to Jeff Janning for alerting me about this.

“Apple has determined that certain Seagate 1TB hard drives used in 21.5-inch and 27-inch iMac systems may fail. These systems were sold between October 2009 and July 2011.

Apple or an Apple Authorized Service Provider (AASP) will replace affected hard drives free of charge.

Apple is contacting affected iMac owners who provided a valid email address during the product registration process to let them know about this program. If you have not been contacted, but think you have a 1TB Seagate hard drive, you can enter your serial number below to see if it's part of this program.”

Click here to go to the Apple Web page concerning possible bad 1 TB hard drives. It will tell you how to find your serial number.

Thank you again, Jeff, for alerting us to this problem.

Tom Briant

Editor and Media Manager, MacValley UG

The iPad Mini fits in a standard lab coat and what this means for medicine

Physicians carry all sorts of things in their lab coats. Lab reports, sandwiches, stethoscopes. Only the size of the objects limits their ability to go with the physician. Up to now, the size of the iPad has kept them from serving as the physicians trusty companion on rounds.

But NOW!…with the introduction of the iPad mini, the iPad slips right into the pockets next to the grilled cheese sandwich and cytology results. An article in Appleinsider points to doctors planning to buy the iPad Mini soon.

"Compared to the general populace, physicians are early and high adopters of Apple products," the company told AppleInsider. "A large majority of physicians own an iPhone, and the current iPad dominates the healthcare tablet market."

Here’s a picture (courtesy of Epocrates, a maker of medical software) of one of their iOS apps on an iPad Mini:

Tom Briant

Editor and Media Manager, MacValley UG

Setting Up a Personal Learning Network on Twiiter

Arnold Woodworth recommended this link to me. It leads to a PDF on setting up a Personal Learning Network on Twitter.

Tom Briant

Editor and Media Manager, MacValley UG

Two Articles Contributed by Arnold Woodworth, our VP

An Amazon user ran into problems with Amazon’s Digital Rights Management. Amazon won’t tell them what they did wrong.

A review of Google’s Chromebook. It’s eerily similar to the 11” MacBook Air, but only a quarter ($249) of the price! Is it for you?

Again, thank you Arnold Woodworth for contributing these links.

Tom Briant

Editor and Media Manager, MacValley UG

Remarks on Windows 8

So I ran the Windows 8 upgrade assistant on my Windows 7 PC. I’m not quite ready for Windows 8. My monitor’s resolution tops out at 1280 x 1024 pixels. The new minimum for Windows 8 is 1366 x 768 pixels.

I then went to the Frys.com Web site. The cheapest monitor, an $85 Viewsonic, just happens to have that 1366 x 768 resolution. I presume my old monitor, which I paid a lot of money for, is now passé. Well, it runs Windows 7.

For a few dollars more, you can get a monitor running 1600 x 900.

My machine also doesn’t support Secure Boot. Windows 8 now supports EFI, which OS X has for a long time. Nice of them to finally catch up.

Check your security software. I’m running Microsoft Security Essentials. Fortunately, Windows 8 comes with Windows Defender performing the same tasks as Microsoft Security Essentials.

Here’s something interesting. Before upgrading to Windows 8, remove your PC from the list of authorized machines in iTunes. I’d back up your iTunes libraries, too.

Windows 8 doesn’t support the sidebar gadgets from Windows 7. I used one for the time, another for weather.

PCWorld.com has an upgrade diary by Patrick Miller, who installed Windows 8 at 3:31 this morning.

That’s it for Windows 8 right now. I’m thinking “How long can I use Windows 7 & Office 2010?” I’ll probably buy a laptop when I finally upgrade from Windows 7. But not this weekend.

Tom Briant

Editor and Media Manager, MacValley UG

Senior Correspondent Arnold Woodworth has a review of Obamacare's enrollment process

MacValley's Own Ken Gruberman Writes About His Experience of Signing Up for Obama Care

I have a lot of respect for Ken's technical abilities.   God help less capable people.

He wrote:

I'm reviewing a process. Namely, the process involved with signing up for health care under the ACA, the Affordable Care Act.

The web site's user interface has both good and bad things.

The real culprit? Bad design from a totally out-of-touch website team that apparently never bought anything on the web.

In all it took about 90 minutes and two phone calls, but I prevailed. If the insurance company accepts my application as submitted, my reward for almost two hours of [problematic web site] torture will be a better policy than what I have now, at one-tenth the cost. I'd say that was worth whatever I had to go through.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ken-gruberman/the-tech-daddy-applies_b_4118983.html

 

 

 

Apple is either terrible at designing charts or thinks you won't notice the difference

http://qz.com/138458/apple-is-either-terrible-at-designing-charts-or-thinks-you-wont-notice-the-difference/

 

 

 

The new iPad Mini affirms that Apple doesn't care about market share, just profit margins

http://qz.com/138453/the-new-ipad-mini-affirms-that-apple-doesnt-care-about-market-share-just-profit-margins/#

 

 

 

Why a $2,999 Mac Pro is a great deal

http://qz.com/138414/why-a-2999-mac-pro-is-a-great-deal/#

 

 

 

How Apple’s Address Book app could allow the NSA to harvest your contacts

When syncing your Address Book to Gmail, HTTPS encryption isn't an option

addresses that automatically travel between Macs and Google servers are sent as plain text.

It's possible Apple developers haven't updated their code since Google introduced the change.

http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/10/how-apples-address-book-app-could-allow-the-nsa-to-harvest-your-contacts/

 

 

 

Robots will always be a step behind humans

http://qz.com/138321/robots-will-always-be-a-step-behind-humans/#

 

 

Tech Comics: The History of Free

A good cartoon.  True in several ways.

http://www.datamation.com/commentary/tech-comics-the-history-of-free-1.html

 

 

 

Oh, That Stolen Identity? Not An Accident

Experian apparently sold data on millions of Americans, including social security, bank account and driver license numbers to a "service" that operated for the explicit purpose of stealing people's identity.

http://www.market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=225264

 

 

 

Police Executive Research Forum document (PDF) about using social media to analyze/control events

http://info.publicintelligence.net/COPS-SocialMedia.pdf

 

 

 

Police: NSA leaks threaten our ability to use invasive surveillance technologies

Law enforcement is confronted with a citizenry that is waking up to the reality of the surveillance state.

http://www.privacysos.org/node/1215

 

 

 

NSA Hacked Mexican Presidents' Email For Years

The National Security Agency hacked the email of former Mexican President Felipe Calderon.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/20/nsa-felipe-calderon-mexico-spying-hacked_n_4132889.html

 

 

 

Security Check Now Starts Long Before You Fly

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/22/business/security-check-now-starts-long-before-you-fly.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&hp&

 

CryptoSeal VPN shuts down rather than risk NSA demands for crypto keys

A consumer VPN service called CryptoSeal Privacy has shut down rather than risk government intrusions that could cost the company money in legal fees and threaten user privacy.

CryptoSeal will continue offering its business-focused VPN, but the consumer service is done, the company announced

The company referred to the case of Lavabit, an e-mail service that shut down rather than comply with government orders to monitor user communications.

"In good conscience there's no reason to continue running a US privacy VPN service without technical controls to prevent being compelled to screw over a user," RDL wrote.

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/10/cryptoseal-vpn-shuts-down-rather-than-risk-nsa-demands-for-crypto-keys/

Senior Correspondent Arnold Woodworth has a review of Obamacare's enrollment process

MacValley's Own Ken Gruberman Writes About His Experience of Signing Up for Obama Care

I have a lot of respect for Ken's technical abilities.   God help less capable people.

He wrote:

I'm reviewing a process. Namely, the process involved with signing up for health care under the ACA, the Affordable Care Act.

The web site's user interface has both good and bad things.

The real culprit? Bad design from a totally out-of-touch website team that apparently never bought anything on the web.

In all it took about 90 minutes and two phone calls, but I prevailed. If the insurance company accepts my application as submitted, my reward for almost two hours of [problematic web site] torture will be a better policy than what I have now, at one-tenth the cost. I'd say that was worth whatever I had to go through.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ken-gruberman/the-tech-daddy-applies_b_4118983.html

 

 

 

Apple is either terrible at designing charts or thinks you won't notice the difference

http://qz.com/138458/apple-is-either-terrible-at-designing-charts-or-thinks-you-wont-notice-the-difference/

 

 

 

The new iPad Mini affirms that Apple doesn't care about market share, just profit margins

http://qz.com/138453/the-new-ipad-mini-affirms-that-apple-doesnt-care-about-market-share-just-profit-margins/#

 

 

 

Why a $2,999 Mac Pro is a great deal

http://qz.com/138414/why-a-2999-mac-pro-is-a-great-deal/#

 

 

 

How Apple’s Address Book app could allow the NSA to harvest your contacts

When syncing your Address Book to Gmail, HTTPS encryption isn't an option

addresses that automatically travel between Macs and Google servers are sent as plain text.

It's possible Apple developers haven't updated their code since Google introduced the change.

http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/10/how-apples-address-book-app-could-allow-the-nsa-to-harvest-your-contacts/

 

 

 

Robots will always be a step behind humans

http://qz.com/138321/robots-will-always-be-a-step-behind-humans/#

 

 

Tech Comics: The History of Free

A good cartoon.  True in several ways.

http://www.datamation.com/commentary/tech-comics-the-history-of-free-1.html

 

 

 

Oh, That Stolen Identity? Not An Accident

Experian apparently sold data on millions of Americans, including social security, bank account and driver license numbers to a "service" that operated for the explicit purpose of stealing people's identity.

http://www.market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=225264

 

 

 

Police Executive Research Forum document (PDF) about using social media to analyze/control events

http://info.publicintelligence.net/COPS-SocialMedia.pdf

 

 

 

Police: NSA leaks threaten our ability to use invasive surveillance technologies

Law enforcement is confronted with a citizenry that is waking up to the reality of the surveillance state.

http://www.privacysos.org/node/1215

 

 

 

NSA Hacked Mexican Presidents' Email For Years

The National Security Agency hacked the email of former Mexican President Felipe Calderon.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/20/nsa-felipe-calderon-mexico-spying-hacked_n_4132889.html

 

 

 

Security Check Now Starts Long Before You Fly

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/22/business/security-check-now-starts-long-before-you-fly.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&hp&

 

CryptoSeal VPN shuts down rather than risk NSA demands for crypto keys

A consumer VPN service called CryptoSeal Privacy has shut down rather than risk government intrusions that could cost the company money in legal fees and threaten user privacy.

CryptoSeal will continue offering its business-focused VPN, but the consumer service is done, the company announced

The company referred to the case of Lavabit, an e-mail service that shut down rather than comply with government orders to monitor user communications.

"In good conscience there's no reason to continue running a US privacy VPN service without technical controls to prevent being compelled to screw over a user," RDL wrote.

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/10/cryptoseal-vpn-shuts-down-rather-than-risk-nsa-demands-for-crypto-keys/

Senior Correspondent Arnold Woodworth has a review of Obamacare's enrollment process

MacValley's Own Ken Gruberman Writes About His Experience of Signing Up for Obama Care

I have a lot of respect for Ken's technical abilities.   God help less capable people.

He wrote:

I'm reviewing a process. Namely, the process involved with signing up for health care under the ACA, the Affordable Care Act.

The web site's user interface has both good and bad things.

The real culprit? Bad design from a totally out-of-touch website team that apparently never bought anything on the web.

In all it took about 90 minutes and two phone calls, but I prevailed. If the insurance company accepts my application as submitted, my reward for almost two hours of [problematic web site] torture will be a better policy than what I have now, at one-tenth the cost. I'd say that was worth whatever I had to go through.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ken-gruberman/the-tech-daddy-applies_b_4118983.html

 

 

 

Apple is either terrible at designing charts or thinks you won't notice the difference

http://qz.com/138458/apple-is-either-terrible-at-designing-charts-or-thinks-you-wont-notice-the-difference/

 

 

 

The new iPad Mini affirms that Apple doesn't care about market share, just profit margins

http://qz.com/138453/the-new-ipad-mini-affirms-that-apple-doesnt-care-about-market-share-just-profit-margins/#

 

 

 

Why a $2,999 Mac Pro is a great deal

http://qz.com/138414/why-a-2999-mac-pro-is-a-great-deal/#

 

 

 

How Apple’s Address Book app could allow the NSA to harvest your contacts

When syncing your Address Book to Gmail, HTTPS encryption isn't an option

addresses that automatically travel between Macs and Google servers are sent as plain text.

It's possible Apple developers haven't updated their code since Google introduced the change.

http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/10/how-apples-address-book-app-could-allow-the-nsa-to-harvest-your-contacts/

 

 

 

Robots will always be a step behind humans

http://qz.com/138321/robots-will-always-be-a-step-behind-humans/#

 

 

Tech Comics: The History of Free

A good cartoon.  True in several ways.

http://www.datamation.com/commentary/tech-comics-the-history-of-free-1.html

 

 

 

Oh, That Stolen Identity? Not An Accident

Experian apparently sold data on millions of Americans, including social security, bank account and driver license numbers to a "service" that operated for the explicit purpose of stealing people's identity.

http://www.market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=225264

 

 

 

Police Executive Research Forum document (PDF) about using social media to analyze/control events

http://info.publicintelligence.net/COPS-SocialMedia.pdf

 

 

 

Police: NSA leaks threaten our ability to use invasive surveillance technologies

Law enforcement is confronted with a citizenry that is waking up to the reality of the surveillance state.

http://www.privacysos.org/node/1215

 

 

 

NSA Hacked Mexican Presidents' Email For Years

The National Security Agency hacked the email of former Mexican President Felipe Calderon.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/20/nsa-felipe-calderon-mexico-spying-hacked_n_4132889.html

 

 

 

Security Check Now Starts Long Before You Fly

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/22/business/security-check-now-starts-long-before-you-fly.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&hp&

 

CryptoSeal VPN shuts down rather than risk NSA demands for crypto keys

A consumer VPN service called CryptoSeal Privacy has shut down rather than risk government intrusions that could cost the company money in legal fees and threaten user privacy.

CryptoSeal will continue offering its business-focused VPN, but the consumer service is done, the company announced

The company referred to the case of Lavabit, an e-mail service that shut down rather than comply with government orders to monitor user communications.

"In good conscience there's no reason to continue running a US privacy VPN service without technical controls to prevent being compelled to screw over a user," RDL wrote.

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/10/cryptoseal-vpn-shuts-down-rather-than-risk-nsa-demands-for-crypto-keys/

Thank You Arnold Woodworth for Today's Articles

I would like to thank Arnold Woodworth, our Vice President, for the links he provided.

If you, a Macvalley member, want to forward links to be posted on the Blog, they would be welcomed!

Tom Briant

Editor and Media Manager, MacValley UG

Does the Cellphone Eat up your families budget? Pro and Con

Cellphones Are Eating the Family Budget .

Government data show people have spent more on phone bills over the past four years, even as they have dialed back on dining out, clothes and entertainment-cutbacks that have been keenly felt in the restaurant, apparel and film industries.

What's Really Eating the Family Budget? It Ain't Smartphones

How the Telecom Lobby is killing Municipal Broadband

In 2005, Colorado passed a state law preventing local governments from essentially building and operating their own telecommunications infrastructure.

Behind the law was, not surprisingly, the telecom lobby

The Space Shuttle goes to the California Science Center in Exposition Park

Thank you, Arnold Woodworth, for going out and taking these fantastic pictures!

Tom Briant

Editor and Media Manager, MacValley UG

The Space Shuttle goes to the California Science Center in Exposition Park

Thank you, Arnold Woodworth, for going out and taking these fantastic pictures!

Tom Briant

Editor and Media Manager, MacValley UG

How to change your login photo to one of your choice-not the Mac's!

Have you noticed that your Mac assigned a picture other than your smiling face as your ID picture on the log-in screen? Do you want to change the icon? Do you want your own face up there? Do you want a picture from the Internet as your ID picture?

This article will walk you through the steps necessary to change the ID picture to the one you want.

Step One. Where is the picture in the first place? You'll find it in the Users & Groups preference pane in System Preferences. (Figure 1)

So go to System Preferences. It looks like a gearbox in versions 10.6, 10.7, and 10.8.

Double-click on System Preferences and choose Users & Groups in 10.7 and 10.8, and Accounts in 10.6. Whatever the name, the icon of several heads in silhouette is the one you want. (Figure 2)

Step Three. Double-click on Users & Groups/Accounts and you'll see this window. (Figure 6). Notice the picture well. You'll use this to change the picture.

Step Four. Place your mouse/pointing device pointer on the picture well. Do Not Click on Anything. Note that a small downward facing arrow appears in the lower right-hand corner. (Figure 4)

Step Five. Now you can click on the arrow in the lower right-hand corner. The following box should pop up in 10.8. You'll see similar in 10.7 and 10.6. You see a grid of icons to use as your ID photo under "Defaults". You can scroll this grid of icons up and down. (Figure 5)

You also see "Recents" to let you choose a recently taken photo. Finally, you see "Camera" which lets you use your iSight or Web cam to take your picture.

Step Six. I assume you want "Camera" Double-click on it. You get a preview of your picture-yes, it's video, so stay still-And an icon of a camera (Figure 6). Click on the camera icon and remain still. You'll see a 3-2-1 countdown and your screen will flash white to act as a flashbulb.

Now you've got your picture. If satisfied, click on "Done" and the picture goes into the picture well.

Step Seven. If you want a picture from another source-your high school graduation picture, snapshots from the beach or a picture taken from the Internet-you get the picture onto your Mac as a .PNG or .JPEG file. If it's huge, I'd use Preview's Tools > Adjust Size…to shrink the picture down to 320 x 240 pixels. Save it under another name!

Step Eight. Now open up the Users & Groups preference pane and drag your picture into the picture well. It should take it and you have a new ID photo when logging in.

Thomas Briant

Editor and Media Manager, MacValley UG

Let's Get Ready to Rumble!

Apple knows how to do a publicity striptease. There’s no doubt about it. They just issue a press invitation for next Tuesday, 10/23/2012, telling us as little as possible; and the press of all sorts goes into a “what if?” frenzy. Everyone from the Reader’s Digest to Glamour to Macworld speculates on what they’ll bring on to the stage. I’ll point you to some speculation at MSNBC that seems to hitMSNBC that seemsto hit the high points.

All we at MacValley will say is “Don’t buy a 13” MacBookPro or MacBook Air until next Tuesday. Don’t buy an iMac until next Tuesday. Don’t buy a Mac Mini until next Tuesday.”

And try to remember that this new hardware won’t make you write better or create a better movie. If you want a product that can improve your looks immediately, invest in some Spanx underwear.

And as for the other item of today…was it deliberate on Micro$oft’s part to announce pricing on its Surface tablet today and then do an about-face, or is their marketing department just that bad?

Apparently they won’t try to compete with the Nexus 7 and the low-end Kindle’s at $199. No, they’re a “serious” tablet, which entitles them to charge $499 and more for the combination of cover and keyboard. See, it’s got a kickstand!

They better have plenty of apps and media available at launch for the Surface, or these things will appear at Big Lots! after Christmas for $50 with cover. They’ll get a certain amount of purchases from technology early adopters who just have to have whatever’s new and from people who wanted a tablet, but have an anti-Apple bias. After that, waddaya got that the iPad hasn’t got?

I’ll leave you with some good news for Windows 8. Stardock, a small software company that makes customization options for Windows, has a free beta version of its Start8 menu for Windows 8 Preview. The final version will cost $5. PC World predicts Stardock will make a small fortune from people relieved to find a solution to Windows 8 user interface that they can’t figure out.

Apple versus Microsoft next week

Microsoft promised it would finally deliver on Windows 8 on October 26th. This presented a fat, juicy target for Apple to swing at.

So it seems that Apple will introduce the long-anticipated “iPad Mini” along with the Retina 13” MacBookPro and the new and improved iMac.

Maybe a new and improved Mac Mini, too.

As for Windows 8, is it really better than Windows 7? We here at Macvalley Labs don’t intend to upgrade to Windows 8 unless M$ offers us a lot of money.

Anyway, Microsoft won’t offer DVD playback in Windows 8. They’ll probably say, “What! You don’t have an Xbox?” If you want DVD playback on your new Windows 8 desktop/laptop; you have the options of learning how to use VLC 2.x. VLC is an all-in-one media player that’s been around for years. It has versions for Linux, OS X, and Windows. In fact, if you bought an external DVD back in the day for your Mac (which only had a CD drive); VLC was pretty much your only option for playing a movie from it.

So, the short version is that VLC works and works well. You’ll need a guide to learn how to use it and PCWorld.com has it right here.

Tom Briant

Editor and Media Manager, MacValley UG

Moving from Classic OS to Mountain Lion as painlessly as possible.r

Every November I return to this topic of moving a Mac user’s data from Classic OS formats to the latest version of OS X. Last year, a conversation with a fellow MacValley user sparked this. This year, it’s working with a Macvalley member with their two vintage Macs running 10.4 and a letter to MacLife from a Classic OS user deciding not to renew his subscription due to its emphasis on OS X.

If you use Classic OS for all or part of your workflow, please be aware of the excellent site Low End Mac. They have a lot of information on getting the most of your older hardware and software.

If you want to move your Appleworks word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, bitmap paintings, vector drawings, and databases into contemporary formats, I shall give you tips on how to do this in the next section. After that, I’ll cover what to do if you want to run Appleworks under Mountain Lion.

Moving the Word Processing, Spreadsheets, and Presentations

You can use Apple’s iWorks office suite to convert Appleworks word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations into formats you can share with others, including your boss who only uses Windows.

The word processing program Pages ’09 will read your Appleworks 6 text documents. You can save them in these formats: .pages, .rtf, .doc, .pdf, and .epub.

The spreadsheet program Numbers ’09 will read your Appleworks 6 spreadsheets. You can save them in these formats: .pdf, .xls, and .csv (comma-separated-values).

The presentation program Keynote can read your Appleworks 6 presentations. You can save them in these formats: Quicktime movie, Powerpoint .ppt, .pdf, separate image files of each slide, an HTML document that you can open in Safari or another Web browser, or as a movie for your iTunes library that you can play on your iPod.

Apple charges $19.99 for each of these programs. You get them in the Mac App Store which comes with Mountain Lion. They don’t offer a trial version like they used to.

Online Resources for Appleworks to iWorks conversion

The longstanding Appleworks User Group is now the Appleworks/iWork Users Group. You can reach them at www.awug.org.

Well, what about the graphics formats?

What about the Painting and Drawing formats?

You can save Paintings in a variety of formats that OS X Preview will open, such as PNG, JPEG, and Windows BMP. So Painting formats are no problem.

Appleworks Drawing, though, is another matter. For that, you need Dekorra Optics’ EazyDraw or Purgatory Design’s Intaglio 3.4.1.

You can’t use the version of Eazy Draw that you get from the Mac App Store to directly open Appleworks Drawings: Let me quote from the Web Site:

EazyDraw version 4 no longer supports import of MacDraw, MacDrawII, MacDrawPro, ClarisDraw or AppleWorks drawings. To import these drawings a retro-version of EazyDraw is provided. This version of EazyDraw still supports these retro-drawings and the import and coversion of PICT vector images. The "retro-version" runs on OS X 10.4, 10.5, 10.6 and 10.7 (current Lion release), imported drawings are then saved in EazyDraw graphic format (or SVG, PDF, ... ) for use on the current OS X technology and EazyDraw version 4. The retro-version is provided on CD with the CD and Boxed versions of EazyDraw.

I also found this retro version of Eazy Draw on the support page of their Web site.

You’ll need a license from Eazy Draw to use the program:

We'll have you downloaded, licensed, and drawing in no time with our 9 month license ($20) or single user license available at our secure online store .

Our $20 trial license is a very popular option. You get a full use license, no limits or constraints, with free updates for 9 months. You may apply the $20 license fee toward the purchase of EazyDraw (download or CD) anytime within the first 2 months.

You got that? Go to http://www.eazydraw.com, download Eazydraw Retro from their support page and convert those Appleworks drawings!

What About Databases?

Let me steal unabashedly and admiringly from Chris Breen here:

Open the Appleworks database and choose Organize->Show All Records.

Select a layout that displays every field, select all, and copy the text to the clipboard.

You could also export the database as ASCII text. If you export the database data to an Appleworks spreadsheet and then move it to FileMaker, some odd characters might appear.

Anyway, open a new spreadsheet document. This can be Appleworks’ own spreadsheet component or an Excel document (Ed. I just tried Numbers from iWork ‘09 and it worked great)

Paste the text into the spreadsheet.

In all likelihood your data won’t contain field headings-Address and Phone Number, for example. When pasting your text, be sure to plunk that text down a couple of rows, leaving room to enter the field heading titles in the first row of the spreadsheet.

Save the spreadsheet as delimited ASCII text. Numbers only exports comma separated values, while Excel 2008 exports both comma separated vales and tab separated values.

Open that file in Filemaker Pro (or another database that imports delimited ASCII text, such as Bento 4).

The data will appear in a spreadsheet layout, meaning you’ll have to recreate the original database’s layout. No, your forms and reports do not copy over from Appleworks.

What if I have to run Appleworks? What are the extreme options?

Your extreme options come down to this:

You can keep Appleworks on a separate machine running Snow Leopard 10.6 or lower. This will work.

As for running a hacked version of Snow Leopard in a virtual machine, or the even more experimental Sheepshaver program for emulating Classic OS on an Intel machine; you’re on your own.

If you’re thinking about hacking, consider this. What does your job pay you hourly? Is it worth the frustration, or would you stay saner if you just went on-line to powermax.com to price something to run Appleworks?

Yeah, just dedicate your old Mac for running stuff you can’t replace. You’ll have to get a new Mac to run Mountain Lion, anyway.

Thomas Briant

Editor and Media Manager.

More fun links for you-courtesy of Arnold Woodworth

Here are links to articles about Apple and other Apple-related topics.

This first one recounts Walt Mossberg’s conversations with Steve Jobs at various times.

This next one is a side-by-side comparison of the New Yorker’s famous Saul Steinberg cover “View from 9th Avenue” in the original and now done with the help of Apple Maps.

Even Apple must have smiled at that one. Now get back to work and fix those maps. (And thank God I still have my old hardcopy Thomas Brothers maps for Southern California!)

Hour long audio:

Steve Jobs describes the iPad -- in 1983 -- that's before the first Macintosh was sold!!

11 minutes into the audio, he talks about "portable computers with radio links" that, someday, people will be able to retrieve E-mail anywhere in the USA.  Some people consider this the prophecy of the iPad.

25 minutes into the audio, he describes his vision of what we call a laptop computer today.

Once again, thank you Arnold!

Tom Briant

Editor and Media Manager, MacValley UG

Anton Anderson of ProConsult featured at MacValley’s October 3rd Meeting

Our Wednesday evening meeting featured Anton Anderson of ProConsult. Anton is a member of the Apple Consultants Network, FMDiSC (FileMaker Developers in Southern California). He’s written a number of articles for developers and consultants in ‘FileMaker Advisor’. 

Anton presented FileMaker’s personal database, ‘Bento’. Those who attended our meeting now know just how versatile and colorful and useful a personal database like Bento can be. From organizing medical information, to volunteer groups info, to lists of favorite wines and beers and even pizza parlors, Bento is absolutely the best database program out there. 

Anton showed us just how easy it is to use Bento’s templates and all its drag-and-drop features to personalize each database. Bento also imports photos and website pages, and its many backgrounds are well designed and colorful. 

Thanks Anton for giving our MacValley members such an unforgettable presentation. 

Cristael Bengtson

President, MacValley UG

The Presentation on Bento on 10/03/2012

Anton Anderson gave a wonderful presentation Wednesday night, 10/03/2012. You must see him give his presentation on Bento.

To sum up his points:

Filemaker (a wholly owned subsidiary of Apple, Inc) wrote Bento specifically for the Mac, taking advantage of the Core technologies built into OS X. Many Windows users envy Bento and wish they had it for their Windows machines. No such luck.

Bento is a personal database. It’s not designed for multi-user use in an office. If you work as a sole proprietor, Bento would work well for you. If you have several employees who all need access to the database, invest in FileMaker. FileMaker can easily handle large numbers of users.

Users can get started quickly with Bento due to its templates. Bento comes with a large stock of templates. You can get more through the on-line Template Exchange, where users submit templates they created for their personal use.

You can get Bento for the Mac and for your iPhone and your iPad. Bento costs $49 for the Mac, $9.99 for the iPad, and $4.99 for the iPhone.

As I said, Bento does not dump you into designing your own database from scratch. You could design your own database from scratch if you’re so inclined. A lot of users, though, will stick with the prewritten templates or just modify an existing template to their needs.

Bento proves useful in business situations where you need to isolate data from the main database. Anton gave the example of a real-estate office where the owner wanted to use the existing Filemaker database for his son’s bar mitzvah. It proved somewhat difficult to integrate the data for the bar mitzvah into the real estate database.

So when the time came for the owner’s daughter’s bat mitzvah, Anton said, “We’ll just take the basic data from the Filemaker database, put it into a Bento database and go from there.” Items such as food preferences for the guests fit easily into a separate Bento database, while the main Filemaker database hummed along with just real estate sales information.

You can store more than just numbers in Bento. You could, if you wanted, set up a database of videos. Anton gave the example of a vocal coach who takes videos of clients at various stages of progress and keeps them in, well, a Filemaker database. But Bento would work just as well. Record your children playing sports or musical instruments and put it into a Bento database, noting their progress over time.

You could store pictures, too; although Bento does not provide for the image editing found in iPhoto or Aperture. If you want to record an inventory of personal possessions, though, you can easily include a photo of these objects.

In summary, Bento provides an easy to use database for personal use. It exploits the features of OS X and complements the iWork office suite.

The Editor proved his own point-Backup, Backup, Backup

Sometime this month, my iPhoto data went wacky. You should see it as a file called iPhoto.photolibrary

Instead, mine turned into garbage. What could I do? Restore it from Time Machine!

So it does pay to keep a dedicated hard drive backing up your Mac hour after hour, day after day, and so forth.

Now the backup process is painless. Just plug in a hard drive of sufficient capacity into your Mac and follow the prompts. Time Machine even reformats the drive if you bought a Windows formatted drive.

Restoring can be more complicated. Macworld.com has an outline tutorial about restoring from Time Machine here.

So I’ll see you next Wednesday at 7:30 pm for the meeting about Bento.

A Preview of Wednesday's Presentation on Bento

On August 14th, I began tracking the number of MacValley followers we have on Twitter. At that time we had 67 followers.

Today, September 21, we have 540 followings and 173 followers. I am going to be working on sending out ‘welcome’ Tweets to each follower.

This coming week I will also begin calling Social Coordinators at retirement residences for independent seniors. I’ll ask the coordinators if they would be willing to post MacValley’s general meetings and monthly classes on their online ‘Upcoming Events’ pages, and if they would be willing to put up MacValley postings on their bulletin boards as well.

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Last month’s presentation was by Arnold Woodworth on ‘Twitter Basics’. Stay tuned. We’ll be having more on Twitter very soon.

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Our October meeting will be Anton Anderson’s presentation of ‘Bento’. And just in case you thought that you don’t need or want your own personal spreadsheet, take a look at what you can do with Bento.

I can tell you from my own personal experience this kind of page is quick and easy to set up. It’s all drag-and-drop, including photos.

Notice the way the photo draws your attention to the page (especially if you’re a beer drinker) Of course it’s simple for wine connoisseurs to adapt this template for their best wines. And with just a few minor changes, coffee lovers can keep track of what tempts their palate and tickles their fancy.

One of the best

things about this app is that it is engaging and colorful. Never again will you think of spreadsheets as being boring.

Here is a template that can be used to help keep track of volunteer meetings and activities. If you want to make changes and modifications, it’s as easy as point and click.

This artwork template can be easily adapted for family photos. And if you would like to try different backgrounds, those are very easy to change and customize.

You can find templates like this one on Bento’s web pages. Just do a Google search for ‘Bento’, and go to the ‘Bento Template Exchange’, where you will see hundreds of templates you can download.

Again, it’s as easy and drag and drop.

The Bento download for the Mac is available at the Filemaker Store. And to download Bento to your iPhone, and Bento 4 to your iPad, just go to Apple’s App Store. Bento can be easily synced between your Mac, your iPhone, and your iPad. Those of you who own the latest iPad will be in heaven.

Our presenter, Anton Anderson, is a consultant for Pro Consult (www.proconsult.com.) Anton, like Elena-Beth, is a member of the Apple Consultants Network. He is also a member of the FileMaker Developers of Southern California.

Overall, this is one of the most exciting programs anyone can have on their desktop. Come to the meeting on October 3rd and learn about this exciting new upgraded Bento from a real expert, who can show everyone, from the most basic Apple users on up to more advanced users just how easy it is to get started on Bento and how much you can do with Bento to make your life better and a lot more organized.

Cristael Bengtson

President and Publicity Chair, MacValley UG