 NewsletterMarch 2007Newsletter Editor: In This Issue:
Meeting information
Future Meetings:
Minutes of the February 21, 2007 Meeting
The newbie session started at 4PM, and the regular meeting was called to order at 4:30 by President Robert Elphick. Treasurer Carol Parks reported that the Club bank balance Is $510.93. It was decided that the Yahoo Magic Mug Group be cancelled due to lack of use. For the 19 members of that group, the only effect will be that meeting notices will no longer be sent via email. Note that this has no effect upon MAGIC activities nor the MAGIC website (http://www.whidbey.com/magicmug/) During the discussion period, it was noted that Apple recommends repairing permissions on OS X prior to and after installation of Apple updates. Thus, automatic updates should be avoided. See the MAGIC website for further details. The presentation subject was about Widgets and was given jointly by Nancy Ruff and Robert Elphick. The material will be available on our website shortly. The March presentation will be on The April presentation will be announced later. The meeting was closed by President Robert at 6PM. Daryl Thomas MAGIC Moments
Robert Y Elphick - a self appointed wizard of the very best kind! Many of the past MAGIC monthly presentations have been rendered into HTML and included in the Tricks and Tips page of this web site. Check them out for useful tricks and tips. Some recent ones include:
Apple Updates
Peter Cohen - MacCentral Tue Jan 23, 4:35 PM ET AirPort Extreme Update 2007-002 This update is recommended for all Intel-based Macintosh computers and improves compatibility with AirPort Extreme base stations and networks. iTunes 7.1 for Mac iTunes 7.1 adds support for the Apple TV and also supports a new full screen Cover Flow and improved sorting options. QuickTime 7.1.5 for Mac QuickTime 7.1.5 delivers numerous bug fixes and addresses critical security issues. These updates can be found at: http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/ Luxor Mahjong Mac released
Macgamestore.com today announced the availability of the digital download version of MumboJumbo's Luxor Mahjong on its Web site. Embark on an epic quest to recover the stolen treasures of Ancient Egypt in Luxor Mahjong. The game features 200 unique layouts available in three play modes: Adventure, Single and Traditional. Three difficulty settings ensure that any player will find a challenge, and three exotic tile sets make Luxor Mahjong a truly custom experience. Luxor Mahjong is priced at US$19.95 and requires Mac OS X 10.2.8 or later. Sex, Lies and Computers
a Memoir by Daryl Thomas Well, I had to get your attention somehow, didn't I? My public (consisting only of our desperate newsletter editor) has been clamoring for an account of my association with computers, so in deference to his wishes, here it is. I have been working with (and swearing at) computers for more than 45 years. My first contact came in 1961 when, as an engineering graduate student, I was working a summer job in the research lab of Caterpillar Tractor Company in Peoria, Ill. and was given the problem of simulating a complex mechanical-hydraulic device. Caterpillar, at that time, had a cutting edge EAI analog computer in their budding computer lab. An analog computer is a completely different animal than the digital computers we know today, and they were very adept at solving a class of mathematical equations known as differential equations. The user would wire the computer's electronic components such that their governing differential equations were analogous to those of the device being simulated; hence the term analog. They were particularly useful in the simulation of aircraft and spacecraft control systems. They did have certain drawbacks, however: They couldn't add or subtract (!) and multiplication and division required special electronics. Analogs have been obsolete for decades now, but they had one characteristic still unmatched by even today's supercomputers Ð the speed of execution is completely independent of problem complexity! Also they were an engineer's dream with large numbers of knobs, dials, wires and other gismos guaranteed to warm the nerdiest engineer's heart. A search of the Web yielded an image of a small EAI analog computer shown below. The one I used was much larger and more impressive! Based on this experience, during the following fall semester as part of my teaching assistantship, I gave a series of seminars to the Mechanical Engineering faculty on analog computing. The M.E. department had just acquired, of all things, a tabletop Heathkit analog computer which nobody knew how to use. It gave me some pleasure to say to one of my professors during a seminar:
 EAI analog computer After graduation, I joined the Jet Propulsion Laboratory as a guidance and control engineer and had my first encounter with a digital computer, an IBM 1620 which then was the equivalent of today's desktop computer except it was more room size than desktop size. Input was via punched cards Ð learning to accurately punch cards was daunting Ð fed through a card reader. It was customary then to draw a diagonal stripe across the top of the deck of input cards with a felt-tip marker so that the deck could easily be reassembled if dropped. Output was via a line printer roughly the size of a VW Beetle. I learned my first Fortran coding informally there, and boy, did I write some terrible code! I eventually became involved with flight operations, but the use of computers for flight operations then was in its infancy, used mostly for spacecraft telemetry display. Houston Mission Control, it was not! I did get to say some neat things, though, over my headset with its little boom mike, such as Later, I joined TRW, a space and defense company in LA, and gradually my coding ability became slightly better. While working at an overseas site, I became familiar with IBM's 360 series big iron models; input was still punched cards, output was still a line printer, and long term storage was on reels of magnetic tape. There I had my first formal encounter with IBM JCL (Job Control Language) in which requires the user to specify everything possible about each and every file the program uses. Definitely user-hostile. A software engineer could literally spend weeks just designing, testing and debugging the JCL for a complex application. A big event was the arrival of an upgraded computer which had an IBM Selectric Typewriter as a console I/O device - think something similar to the Mac OS Terminal application. In the early 70's I moved to a project developing advanced signal processing S/W for classified military applications. The top end computer (I''ll not name the manufacturer, now deservedly defunct) had a big, whopping 128K of memory, a couple of 80MB disk drives, each the size of a 2-drawer filing cabinet and magnetic tape drives the size of refrigerators. It was deployed to several sites world-wide. I'm still amazed at the job the S/W did on very limited computer resources and its success was due entirely to the abilities and dedication of the TRW S/W designers and developers. Portions of the original code rehosted to modern computers are still running today. In the 80's and 90s I had a series of encounters with Sun workstations and DEC VAX minicomputers. The Suns ran Unix as a operating system (the guts of our Mac OS X), and I found that Unix was a major hinderance to an engineer trying get a problem solved, although the computer geeks loved it. The VAX operating system, VMS, I felt was just as powerful, but a lot more user friendly. I met my first Mac, a IIci around '93 on a project which used them just for requirements tracing and general memo and report writing (MS Word 5.1a) and thought it was pretty nifty, so I bought a used one for my own use. The Internet was just becoming available to the public then, and I haven't looked back since. One of the nice things about Macs, both then and now, is that if you do something stupid, the Mac usually doesn't bite you. After retirement in '95, my wife and I moved to Whidbey, and I was happy to find a first-class, Mac- friendly ISP, Whidbey Telecom, and later MAGIC. In 2001-2002 sometime, I saw a meeting announcement for MAGIC, and I went and liked what I saw. The founders were Nancy Ruff and Mary Farmer, and the first meetings were held in the computer lab of Langley H.S, a very meeting unfriendly place, since changed, of course, to our current location at Trinity Lutheran Church. I have learned a lot and have made good friends from MAGIC. My use of a Mac is fairly conventional: communications, news, financial sites, and email with side projects of occasional MAGIC presentations, converting my LP collection to CDs, ditto my color slide collection to DVD slide shows with narration and music soundtracks. iPod shuffle wins Design Week Award
Apple's iPod shuffle has been awarded Article at: http://www.macminute.com/2007/02/23/ipod-shuffle-award/ Apple TV Overview
Your computer is the center of your digital life. Your TV is the center of your entertainment life. But what if you want to watch movies, TV shows, movie trailers, pod-casts, and photos from your computer on your TV? At $299, Apple TV brings iTunes to the big screen. The revolution will be televised. Say you've just downloaded Cars from iTunes. Instead of huddling around your computer to watch, you pop some popcorn while your computer wirelessly syncs your new flick to Apple TV. Then you pull up a seat, put up your feet, and pick up the included Apple Remote to play your movie on TV. Give yourself a hand: You've just changed the way you watch digital media. Apple TV ports iTunes to Apple TV, wire free. Apple TV connects to your TV via an HDMI port or component video and audio ports. Its built-in, superfast 802.11 wireless capability syncs your iTunes library from any Mac or PC in the house. Best of all, what's on Apple TV stays in sync: Anytime you change your library in iTunes, it changes on Apple TV - wirelessly, automatically. What's on TV? Whatever you want. Apple TV puts your iTunes library - movies, TV shows, music, and pod-casts - plus movie trailers from Apple.com on your TV. And your digital photos from iPhoto on a Mac or Adobe Photoshop Elements or Adobe Album on a Windows PC appear in high definition, so you can put on a stunning big-screen slideshow. Article at: http://www.apple.com/appletv/ Apple TV ship date pushed back to mid-March Expected to ship by the end of February, Apple on Monday said that Apple TV will be delayed for a couple of weeks.
Steve Jobs introduced Apple TV during his Macworld Expo keynote last month in San Francisco. Apple TV features connections for USB 2, Ethernet, HDMI, component video, and optical audio connections. The device also supports three popular 802.11 wireless standards - 802.11b, 802.11g, and 802.11n - allowing users to wirelessly stream content from Macs or PCs running iTunes 7 to a TV. Apple TV will cost $299 when it ships. Article at: http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/02/26/appletv/index.php?lsrc=mwweek Backup improves memory management
by Peter Cohen - MacWorld Apple's Backup software has been updated to version 3.1.1 and is available for download from Apple's Web site. It's a free update. Backup is utility software offered to users of Apple's subscription-based .Mac service. It enables you to back up important files, using either your .Mac iDisk or local media, including hard drives, CDs or DVDs. An active .Mac account is necessary for Backup to work. New features in the 3.1.1 update include improvements to backup and restoration using external hard disk drives; better memory management and better restore of bundled file types. System requirements call for Mac OS X v10.3.9 or later. Article at: http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/03/02/backup/index.php?lsrc=mwweek Netflix: iTunes complements new streaming service
by Peter Cohen - MacCentral Earlier this week mail order movie rental service Netflix introduced a new service that enables computer users to stream movies directly to their desktops. The company said it's a complementary service to Apple's iTunes Store, not a competitor.
...How it works Netflix enables movie enthusiasts to rent movies on DVD through the U.S. Postal Service, maintaining a queue of movies for check-out on the company's Web site. You're not restricted by due dates or shipping fees; the service offers scaling rates depending on how many movies you want to take out at once. Netflix introduced the streaming technology earlier this week on a limited basis to a small group of subscribers, and hopes to ramp it up into a phased rollout over the next six months. Unfortunately, as it exists now, Netflix's streaming video service is restricted specifically to PCs running Windows, as it uses Windows Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology in order to work. Games: Baron WingNuts 2
Baron WingNuts 2 takes you on a fantastic journey to over 30 real, (and not so real), locations and time periods as you hunt Baron Von Schtopwatch and the mysterious "Raina". Play through time as you encounter enemies from the 1920s into the distant future. With over 100 real world aircraft, helicopters, blimps, tanks, ships and submarines, you'll never run out of things to shoot! WingNuts 1 (Free), and Baron WingNuts 2 can be found at: http://www.freeverse.com/wn2/ A Basic Guide for Migrating to Intel-Macs
by Steve Kapplin If you are migrating a PowerPC system (G3, G4, or G5) to an Intel-Mac be careful what you migrate. Keep in mind that some items that may get transferred will not work on Intel machines and may end up causing your computer's operating system to malfunction. Rosetta supports
In addition to the above you could also have problems with migrated cache files and/or cache files containing code that is incompatible. If you migrate a user folder that contains any of these items, you may find that your Intel-Mac is malfunctioning. It would be wise to take care when migrating your systems from a PowerPC platform to an Intel-Mac platform to assure that you do not migrate these incompatible items. If you have problems with applications not working, then completely uninstall said application and reinstall it from scratch. Take great care with Java applications and Java-based Peer-to-Peer applications. Many Java apps will not work on Intel-Macs as they are currently compiled. As of this time Limewire, Cabos, and Acquisition are available as universal binaries. Do not install browser plug-ins such as Flash or Shockwave from downloaded installers unless they are universal binaries. The version of OS X installed on your Intel-Mac comes with special compatible versions of Flash and Shockwave plug-ins for use with your browser. The same problem will exist for any hardware drivers such as mouse software unless the drivers have been compiled as universal binaries. For third-party mice the current choices are USB Overdrive or SteerMouse. Contact the developer or manufacturer of your third-party mouse software to find out when a universal binary version will be available. Also be careful with some backup utilities and third-party disk repair utilities. Disk Warrior (does not work), TechTool Pro (pre-4.5.1 versions do not work), SuperDuper (newest release works), and Drive Genius (untested) may not work properly on Intel-Macs. The same caution may apply to the many Before migrating or installing software on your Intel-Mac check MacFixit's Rosetta Compatibility Index. Additional links that will be helpful to new Intel-Mac users: Because Migration Assistant isn't the ideal way to migrate from PowerPC to Intel Macs, using Target Disk Mode or copying the critical contents to CD and DVD or an external hard drive will work better when moving from PowerPC to Intel Macs. Basically the instructions you should follow are:
Written by Kappy with additional contributions from a brody. Article at: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=435350&tstart=0 Book Publishing with Blurb
For members who wish to publish their text and or graphics in a paper or hard back book here is a cost effective method that works with Macs. It's this simple:
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS FOR MACINTOSH: Everything that you need can be found at: http://www.blurb.com/ The Ultimate Customize Toolbar Shortcut
from Apple's If you want to customize the items in your toolbar (and there's nothing wrong with that), just Command-Option-click the little white pill-shaped button at the top right of your window's title bar, and the Customize Toolbar dialog will appear, right there in your window. Now you can just drag-and-drop icons onto the toolbar. 
Forcing a Document on an Application
from Apple's Sometimes docked apps don't want to open your document, even though they may be able to, so you have to coax (okay, force) them to give it a try. For example, let's say you created a document in WordPerfect for Mac a few years back. if you drag that document to Microsoft Word's icon in the Dock, chances are it won't highlight (which would be the indication it can open that document). If that happens, just hold Command-Option, then drag the document's icon to the Word icon in the Dock, and you can force it to try to open that document.
Finding the Combined Size of More than One Document
from Apple's Let's say you have several files on your desktop, and before you copy them all onto your jump drive, you want to find out their combined size. Here's how it's done: Select all the files for which you want the combined size, then press Command-Option-I, which brings up the Multiple Item Info dialog, complete with a list of how many files are selected and their combined size.
MAGIC, the Macintosh Appreciation Group of Island County, serves people who use Macintosh computers, software and peripherals. Our goal is to share information and get answers to questions to make us more productive with our use of technology. Our monthly meetings give us a chance to discuss computer problems and share ideas with other Mac users, feature speakers on specific topics, and to keep apprised of Apple news. |
