This user group meets once a month in the Multimedia Lab at All Saints Anglican School, Highfield Dr, Merrimac.Map.
The Multimedia Lab is situated in the Senior Library, directly down the stairs from the pedestrian crossing, near the main entrance of the school. Our meetings are held on the first Monday of the month, except January, starting at 7.30pm. (Unless this conflicts with a Public Holiday or the room is unavailable). For more information contact Steve Lewis 0412306100.
The user group meetings are a mixture of product reviews, tutorials and discussions. We aim to support and maybe inspire Gold Coast Macintosh computer users. We often invite guest speakers to address the group regarding a "macentric" topic. However, we encourage new Mac users to join us and now include a section at each meeting called MAC ESSENTIALS, designed to feature a useful basic tip. The group is a mixture of computer professionals, business owners, educators, students and seniors. Meetings include a tea or coffee break and a Q and A session.
Latest news...check here for links to the latest Mac related news...Macsurfer
The new Apple Store at Robina opened on Saturday 9th May at 9.00am
Apple Store opening in Sydney. Click here to see a great Quicktime VR view of the new store. Here is an interesting video showing Apple models over the years.
Next Meeting: Monday 6th July 2009
On the Agenda Starting at 7.30pm...
Mac Essentials
New iPhone features and upgrade options
Jeff's Tips and Tricks...and gadgets
Q and A
Tea and Coffee
Meeting Notes June
• Steve mentioned that the price of white MacBooks had come down and were also faster.
• Bops showed us the magazine iCreate which comes from the United Kingdom and said that he thought it was the best and most up-to-date Mac publication. It has a mnix of tutorials and current Mac news.
• New Apple Store at Robina
Jeff showed a video he had made on
the opening of the new Apple Store at Robina. He said there are classes available which can be booked
online. One-to-one lessons are
also available. For $129/year you
can turn up to a lesson up to once every week, which works out very cheaply.
• Jarryd spoke about the World Wide Development Conference to be held
in California where new programs and new products will be shown. Apple is spending a lot of money on
design and research. The new
iPhone 3.0 will have Cut, Copy and Paste as well as other new features. The new iPhone is expected to be
released on 9 September, 2009.
• Steve mentioned a few free applications which he thought were well worth looking at:
- Handbrake 0.9.3 is a free
application for converting files from one format to another, ripping little
pieces of DVD to put into a movie, and makes it possible to extract the whole
of the DVD.
- MPEG Streamclip is a powerful video converter,
player, editor for MPEG, QuickTime, iPod.
It can use the URL of a movie particularly needing to send things out in
a different format. Export to
QuickTime. It is another
conversion tool good for opening files you have trouble opening.
- VLC player Video
player great or playing AVI. It is
freeware. QuickTime will open some
AVIs but not all. There is a lot
of variation in them and there can be issues, and a VLC player can resolve
these problems. It will convert
AVI Movies to iPod format.
- MacTheRipper can rip dvd to VOB files and convert VOB files to all video and audio formats. (this is from the web). It removes CSS encryption
- KeepViv.com can get YouTube video clips and download them.
• Bops spoke about TeamViewer which is a small application which
enables you to connect to another computer over the internet. It works with a Mac or PC. When the application is launched it
gives you a password, which you give to the owner of the other computer which
will then give access to their computer screen.
• GarageBand – iLife09.
Members were given a demonstration of how GarageBand worked and then
encouraged to put some music together.
A video was shown which highlighted some of the capabilities of GaragaeBand, including learning musical instruments such as the guitar and piano.
Next Committee Meeting is on
Tuesday 9 June at Broadbeach.
Next Monthly Meeting will be held at All Saints on Monday, 6th July, 2009 at 7.30pm.
State of Play with Mac –
The health of Steve Jobs is a concern but people running the company in his
place seem to be doing a good job.
The last financial report from Apple came in with an extraordinary
profit. Microsoft has recorded its
very first loss since it started.
There has been continued growth in iPod sales. There have been more applications for the iPhone, such as
Barista, 2000 Awesome Facts and some banks have applications to do banking on
iPhone. There is an application
produced by the ABC to allow people to watch ABC content online. The Apple store at Robina is still not
open (Breaking News: It opens on
Saturday, 9th May!).
Text to Speech on Mac – Jarryd said this is a system available on Mac which will read what is highlighted and is useful for checking what has been typed. To do this, go into System Preferences, then click on Speech. This will bring up a window showing Speech Recognition and Text to Speech. Under Text to Speech there is a window for the choice of voice. Alex is the most recent and perhaps easier to understand voice, but others can be selected. You can have the voice speaking slower or faster. Tick the box “Speak selected text when the key is pressed” and you will be asked to select a key to activate this. Jarryd suggested Control + Option + S. (I found that I had to press the keys for Control and Option and S, not type in the words). Be careful choosing the key short cut as some keys have already been delegated for other uses. VoiceOver does something similar but does not have the advantage of a key short cut. To stop the voice simply press the key short cut again. Sometimes the voice will slur when the computer is really busy.
Summarising Text – Highlight the paragraph you wish summarised. In the program you are in e.g. Safari, you will find under the Safari Menu the word Services. Go to this and then to Summarize in the drop down menu. In the window that comes up you will see that it is possible to move the scale to make the summary smaller or larger.
Zooming can be done by holding down the Control key and moving button on the mouse. (Also, via System Prefs > Universal Access - ??)
Photo Booth – If you wish to find a photo to print but don’t know where it is, click on the Help menu. Learn to use the Help feature.
Spotlight is a useful feature. The shortcut key for this is Command + Space Bar. Spotlight is not only useful for finding a file but also is a dictionary, etc.
Break for Tea/Coffee
Jeff demonstrated how to make a slideshow with 4 selected photos and how to select the transitions and theme he wanted to use in his movie. Having set up the slide show he then showed how he edited a short movie and then added the short slideshow so that the transitions were being used in his movie. He has developed this technique to use transitions that are not available in iMovie. Jeff also showed a DVD on Waterboarding to entertain members.
Members are reminded that fees are due. Remember, the club cannot continue without adequate money to pay for essentials such as insurance, room hire, etc.
Next Committee Meeting is on Tuesday 12 May at Broadbeach.
When you shake the iPhone, it will give Undo, you will be asked if you want to Undo. In iTunes, Shake will shuffle to give random music.
Spotlight Search, which will search the phone to find anything easily.
GPS – can tell you where the nearest cinema is.
MMS – Multimedia Messaging Service for sending messages that include multimedia objects
(images, audio, video, rich text).
It will be
possible to plug in 3rd Party accessories. Diabetics will find this useful as they will be able to get
a reading on IP and even have calculations for treatment, or send reminders to
parents if necessary. It will also
mean the iPhone can be plugged into the stereo system.
(Shazzam is a
product which can give information regarding music that is being played).
Our next presenter was Joel Marr who is consulting to sort out problems which people are experiencing with their computers. He suggested using Time Machine to back up so that important files are not lost. It was suggested by a member that it is a good idea to back up once a month and give that back-up to a neighbour for safe keeping in case of a house fire. Lap tops have a built-in a system to remind the user after 10 days to do a back-up, and then again after 15 days if you have not backed up in that time. Time Capsule can be used for up to 10 machines, but will fill up quickly. Terabyte drives can be purchased for multiple machines. The initial back-up of Time Machine can take 2-3 hours as it goes through all information on the machine but subsequent backups will be quick. Time Machine can be instructed what to backup so that it will not backup files you don’t need to backup and can also restore single items. Time Machine can also be used as a router.
UPS- Uninterrupted Power Supply (costs $100) regulates power (keeps power at a constant 240V) and gives time to close down safely if there is a blackout. It will also improve the picture on the TV. However, don’t plug in non-essential devices to UPS such as printers and speakers. Line Interactive Filter will change the power to the correct amps.
www.umart.com.au is a one-shop online computer superstore at Jackman Street, Southport. (If order online, save $10 for every purchase).
Joel was asked what were the most common issues he was asked about and he said it was probably problems with Office and iMovie. He also finds he helps people who have only just changed to a Mac. For people who are experiencing problems with their computer it is often a good idea to just Restart the computer, especially if the computer has not been shut down for a while. However, make sure to SAVE everything first. Sometimes it is a good idea to run Disk Utilities > Repair Permissions. Disk Warrior will fix things if the computer has not been shut down properly. Disk Genius will manage, maintain and optimise your hard drive. Monolingual removes unnecessary language resources and can reclaim hundreds of megabytes of disk space. However, make sure that English is left on!
Can reset PRAM if have problems – press Command/Option/P/R together and restart.
Break for Tea/Coffee
Geoff showed us some older forms of external storage and went on to talk about what is available today. Western Digital have a terabyte hard drive for $150 which is quieter, cooler and “green” if a lot of storage is needed. Amongst the many we saw on the screen was a Pleiades Housing for those who find an external hard drive is not sufficient. This has Fire Wire, USB, eSata, and external power supply. When it is hooked up to the computer it goes to sleep if the computer goes to sleep which saves a lot of space.
(USB Storage show. Hard Drive docks SoHouse allows you to plug in an external hard drive
Firewire is still faster than USB2 (but USB-3 will be 10 x faster). Firewire 3200 is next generation, USB3 will be backwards compatible but is still not available.
Sata HDD (Unitek) Double Dock is another which has AV connections and can play movies through the TV ($84). All need an external power supply.
Geoff prefers dock with Firewire, eSata and USB ports and something that sleeps when the computer sleeps but the dock needs a special chip to do this.
iMovie09 adds powerful new editing tools. There is the Precision Editor which means two clips can be made to match up when they originally don’t. The effects can go faster or slower or even in reverse as required. Hollywood-style titles can be added, and the look of footage can be changed. There are many title styles to choose from. Video Effects can be added quite simply. There is Photo Stabilisation to correct shakes in a video clip. Themes have been introduced to bring together movies with animated graphics, titles and transitions. Each Theme has a unique feel. A Theme can be chosen when beginning a project or applied after. New themed elements can also be added. It is also easy to add travel mounts to a video, using the Globe icon. There is a full screen browser to make it easy to browse and skim through projects. To learn more see the guided tour on www.apple.com/ilife/guided-tours/
Garage Band has a brand new feature allowing downloads of tutorials from artists. There are actually lessons from artists. It is all in HD which gives a lovely display. iDVD does not seem to have changed much.
ILife costs $129 for the Family Pack
E-Bay
Some members were having problems using either Safari or Firefox to use e-Bay and it was suggested Garage Sale can solve some problems, although there are many browsers, up to 80 in fact. Opera is another good browser. It was suggested that the best time to sell on e-Bay was to put the item up for sale on a Sunday evening. Bids seem to come in on the last few seconds. Other sites suggested to look at were Garage Sale, Garage Buy and Garage Pay which cost about $25 per application. Paypal is a secure integrated third party payment system linked with e-Bay.
Bops suggested looking at www.iwascoding.com for the Garage Sale software, etc.
Click the ‘Refresh’ button (next to photos) to re-format ads, etc.
ISPs
Members were asked which ISPs they used. Speed was important. This can be tested by going to www.SpeedTest.net/ Sometimes it can depend on how far your house is from the telephone exchange. Speed with a cable connection can depend on how many in the street are connected. Some ISPs are more friendly towards Mac users than others. (eg,, iPrimus, OntheNet are Mac-friendly; Optus is not).
It was suggested to look up www.whirlpool.net.au for broadband ISP news and comparisons.
Some ISPs adopt the ‘shaped’ account approach if you exceed your data download limits – ie, your connection speed slows down (to dial-up speeds) rather than get charged at exorbitant rates (eg, Telstra charges $160/GB for excess downloads).
Also check www.speedtest.net to check your computer connection download and upload speeds.
ABC iView is a free internet broadcasting service that allows you to watch ABC TV programs on your computer (for free!).
Meeting Notes November
Bops gave a demonstration of how to share Address Books and Calendars between connected computers. Open Address Book Preferences – Sharing and tick “Allow Sharing”. This will give a list of people you can allow to access data. There is also a box for sending an invitation telling people every time you make a change to the other person’s address book. It will make a change and it has gone straight up to MobileMe. You can still copy a list of addresses into a group from the shared address book. Going back into the group select names. Deleting them doesn’t take them out of the address book. This is an easy way to do things if you have a situation where you are taking care of another address book, e.g. a husband keeping a wife’s address book up to date without having to check the other computer physically. You can also publish the address book – can subscribe to another MobileMe Address Book and can share this with a computer not connected to you by wireless. Both people can work on it at the same time. Even photos can be shared to a particular person you nominate. (NB – The other party must also click the “Share your Address Book” in the Address Book Prefs.)
Sharing Calendar (iCal) – There is a bit more conflict than with Address Book. Need to publish to MobileMe, gives you the option who to publish to. Easy as MobileMe connects up with an URL and that is the link to people you want to share calendar with. There is a restriction on this as they do not have different levels of sharing. It is “Read Only”. It is handy for looking up what other people are doing. There is another way to share the calendar and this is called Spanning Sync (has to be paid for) – drives in a Google Calendar and Google Address Book. It is a way to synchronise so you can give people access if you want to make changes to your and no have access to you computer. Also maintains different colours, which iCal used for different appointments. Google will support the same colour scheme. Contacts also you can synchronise all contacts or select certain groups. If you only want to share parts of your Address Book you only share that part. The schedule for synchronising can be set up on every hour, or every day, or automatically.
Can also “find shared calendars”. Open iCal - Calendars – Find Shared Calendars.
Can do changes at any time it suits him. As well as Spanning Sync there is iDisk Sync.
(Comment was made that if you go into another time zone with iPhone it automatically changes to the local time.)
JEFF’S GADGETS
Jeff gave a couple of tips. First, how to have the date displayed at the top corner of the screen with the time. Go to System Preferences – International – Formats - under Date select Customize. In the window that comes up Select format of date you want and copy it, go back to Time Format – Customize – change Short on Show to Medium, drag date into the window, (can put colons etc) select pm.
System Preferences – International – Formats – Customize date then come down date can be into time, customize time and copy that format, and change short to medium. To check day go into time in corner and delete day.
Jeff commented that he found the start up noise on his Mac was too loud and has found a way to turn it down. You can down load a free program Start Up Pane for Mac OS10. Install. Go to Startup Sound – this allows start up sound control. It does not affect the normal volume level.
Jeff then showed us some pictures of very large TV screens ranging from the Panasonic 103” to the Panasonic 150” and even a screen which covers an entire wall.
Thanks Margaret Jamieson for the meeting notes.
Meeting notes September 2008
Jeff started off the meeting with a presentation on external storage,
hard drives, enclosures and docks, showing many different types
including twin docks, multimedia docks and more. He then demonstrated
and passed around his new Unitek HDD dock, which also doubled up as a
2 port USB hub and a 4 slot card reader. Then followed the highlight
of the evening - a conference call from the snow fields from club
president Steve, for a quick update on the meeting. Next a very
thorough and informative presentation from Jarryd on iWork. He showed
off the inner workings of Pages, Numbers and Keynote and pointed out
it's many advantages over Microsoft Office. Then Jeff gave a
presentation on MPEG Streamclip and showed how to download a flash
movie from YouTube and convert it to Quicktime, crop it from 4x3 to
16x9, zoom in on it and even extract the audio file as an AIF or MP3.
He then continued on explaining the differences between eSATA,
Firewire and USB, and went on to explain the new technologies of
Firewire 3200 and USB 3.0. The group then broke for coffee and
biscuits and a friendly chat to finish of the night.
Meeting Notes July 2008
With unprecedented iPhone 3G media coverage it was logical that we
centred our attention on this device. Jarryd Hall and Sam Mangan gave
an excellent presentation on all things iPhone 3G. The boys covered, in
detail, interface, plans, coverage, applications and costs. Having an iPhone at the meeting to give attendees a close look at features such as web page rendering and the accelerometer which when you rotate the iPhone from portrait to landscape, detects the movement and changes the display accordingly, provided the necessary practical angle to the presentation. A video summary of their presentation will soon be available. It was mentioned that MacTalk, an excellent Australian Mac resource, has an exhaustive set of forums discussing the iPhone 3G including an analysis of plans and availability. Sam and Jarryd managed to answer most of the questions of the members and led some interesting discussions ranging from reception issues and WiFi availability through to data allocations within the various plans that are available. They finished their presentation with a review of the recently launched MobileMe service that replaces .mac. This service is designed to provide an integrated system enabling synchronised mail, calendar, galleries, storage and web pages. Next we had a quick (60 second) summary movie of the World Wide Developers Conference Steve Jobs Keynote. We went on to look at how to make a DVD of photos stored in iPhotos before Jeff managed to amaze us all (once again) with another relic from his gadget collection. This time it was some of the early game consoles and controllers. Seeing and hearing some of the early games made for an interesting contrast to the games featured on the app store available for the iPhone. We finished up with a look at some of the options available in iDVD including encoding and audio settings. Thanks to Noel for stepping in and organising the Coffee break and fee collection.