MacValley | The MacValley blog

Sunday, September 30, 2012

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

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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.

Friday, September 28, 2012

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

Monday, September 24, 2012

Great Article by Chris Breen of Macworld on e-mail

Chris Breenwrote a great article about e-mailon your Mac.

How to keep from sending an offensive e-mail to your boss
How to see the same message on all your Apple devices
Save yourself from spam
Don’t bounce messages back to the sender-the spammers already know about this trick!
Speed up your e-mail by archiving your old e-mail.
How to keep old e-mail in another e-mail app (Thunderbird)

Tom Briant

Media Manager, MacValley UG

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Ten Good Reasons Why You Should Become a MacValley Apple User Group Member

When I talk with people about MacValley, the one thing they almost always tell me is, “I really need help with my Mac.”

And many of them do need help, badly. The kind of help they need is almost always an answer to a simple problem that would take almost no time for some very knowledgeable person to fix. But for the average user, the simple problems can often be royal head-bangers.

So what do you do when you have a problem? You could ask an Apple Genius. They can be very helpful. Yet the moment you leave the Apple Store, chances are you’ve forgotten half of what you’ve been told. And you’d feel mighty foolish going back and asking, “What was that third step I’m supposed to take?”

You could call a consultant, but most consultants don’t do phone consulting, especially not for free. That’s because with all the calls they get every day, giving out free help and free advice would take up at least half their workday.

You could get help from your son, your grandson, your nephew, your neighbor’s kid, or someone you meet when you’re having coffee at your local Starbucks. Well, maybe not.

Or you could come to the next MacValley meeting. (macvalley.org/meetings)

At every meeting we have lively Q&A sessions where anyone in the room can come to the microphone, and ask questions about their Macs or their iPads and get good sound help from knowledgeable people and other users like themselves. I’m always surprised at the number of answers our group has to offer people, and I’m intensely amazed at the background of Arnold Woodworth, Tom Briant, Tom Burton and our emcee Elena-Beth Kaye, who is an Apple Certified Consultant and exceedingly knowledgeable about all things Mac.

If you are self-conscious or feel like you don’t know enough, our Mac experts and MacValley members are supportive and helpful in so many ways.

And believe me, I know first hand just how terrific our people can be. Lots of folks find that getting information from MacValleyites is not only free, it’s fun.

At MacValley you’ll have yourself a great learning experience, no matter what level of Mac user you are.

So come to our next MacValley meeting. We guarantee you’ll not only get yourself plenty of good sound Mac info and advice, you’ll also have a really great time at MacValley Apple Users Group.

The Spaceshuttle Endeavor flies over Los Angeles with pictures!

On Friday September 21, a little before noon, the Space Shuttle Endeavor (on top of the its 747) flew over where I (Arnold Woodworth) work.

Here are a few of the pictures I took.

Note the two fighter escorts. They are F-18 jets.

The first two pictures were taken just after they cleared the hill to the west.

The Griffith Observatory is on that hill, and I'm sure the people there got a great view.

The next two pictures were taken when they flew right over me.

Any aviation buffs might notice that the "slats" on the front of the wings of the 747 are deployed so that the 747 can fly slower and give people on the ground more time to view the Space Shuttle Endeavor as if flies past.