Worth Godwin speaking about his new learning series on DVD.

We kicked the meeting off showing the first part of the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) keynote address.  This was in the form of the PC/Mac ads with the PC man telling all the developers to go home because, among other reasons, it builds character for Mac users to experience viruses and error messages.  However, we didn't have speakers for this presentation, so we didn't watch much.

Presentation:
Margaret Strubel – Adobe Illustrator CS tutorial.  Margaret explained the usefulness of Illustrator from easy tasks to more complex artistic techniques.  Margaret explained the difference between a vector based program like Illustrator and a raster based program like Photoshop.  The crispness of fonts with their high degree of flexibility was highlighted in the demo. Margaret demo'd a flyer, the design of a logo, using a logo in the making of business cards, and the auto-trace tool. Abram showed off his new Mac Book!  It was much fun to see how the built-in iSight camera worked.  Abram was proud to show us the cool features of the MacBook: the larger trackpad, the glossy screen meant for outdoor use, the magnetic power cord plug.  Thank you Abram!

Next Meeting is at the Aloha Outpost on 16 Sep at 2pm.  See you there!

Big news!  Chuck Joiner interviewed Christopher Breen.  We listened to the interview. Breen's Bungalow is coming back for the user's group.  We then watched a Breen's Bungalow.  He used to be the senior editor for MacWorld.  He showed us some iLife06 tips and tricks.  This is on our CD of The Month.

Tip for iPhoto:  Cntl click the plus mark on iPhoto to create a smart library.

Tip for iTunes:  Gaps between iTunes songs- drag songs into iMovie and position the songs so they are seamless.

Garage band: musical typing.  Each key will have a prerecorded sound.  Drag sound to a key on the keyboard for your own custom sound.  This is a great way to create your own sample player.

Q&A:
Multiplexing problem with iDVD – what's the answer?  Shrugs.

Want to email MS Money but don't want to use Mail-how do I change it so I use another email program?  Check preferences to see if you can change it.

There was grousing about Hawaiian Tel and the frustrations with email.  Changing keychains and making sure Hawaiian Tel is the only server can help out.  They are STILL having trouble since they fired a bunch of people.

Applecare is really important to have.  This can save you a bundle.  We can't emphasize this enough.

By the way: The 1 year warranty only covers hardware.

For Backups:
Set Carbon Copy Clone for an incremental backup to only backup those files that have changed; set this up in preferences.

Presentation:
Mars Cavers -"Books from iPhoto".  Make an album that either you or Apple can print.  She showed off some high quality versions of the ones she's done, very impressive.  Easy for any skill level and time saving for all.

You can't print from iPhoto – pdf it and then print the pdf.  However, you have to add a cover page, a blank inside page at the front if you want to print this as a book because otherwise the cover may be page 1.

Steve Pollard suggested One on One software to get rid of excess pixilation of photos.  He didn't remember the exact name.  I could not find this in a quick web search.

Our next meeting will be 17 August in Hilo at Kope Kope café!

June 15, 2006 - Hilo Lagoon Center

Dawn was saying that we organizers of the MacNuts have been falling down on the job.  We need more input from everyone.  Everyone seemed to like the spring cleaning demo.  We were going to have an iLife demo but it fell out.  Another guy was going to do an iSight ichat.  No longer internet access here at Hilo Lagoon Center.  Internet has been pivotal.  So, the meetings will be moving to Kope Kope in the Hilo Shopping Center. Kope Kope has wireless and it's another 2/3 bigger than the Lagoon Center room.  

12 people attended our meeting. Peet says that people aren't here because we are bimonthly -we've dropped off in attendance.

Oceanview Mars may start up West Hi to the Macs.  East meets west.  

Compucycle was very (overly) successful.  Some guy took most of the Macs for kids.

.Mac  Patrick talked about the highlites, said people were selling it on ebay for $50. Really good deal! Sync to iDisk for backups or if you have multiple Macs is one of the highlights.

April 20, 2006 - Hilo Lagoon Center

Dawn's 50th birthday party! There was a Beautiful Cake and lots of food. It was a fun and relaxing meeting. But we did talk Mac too...

Computer maintenance: Spring Cleaning your Mac Demo by Dawn
Disk utility is very very important.  Can put into dock for easier access.  1st aid more advanced than OS 9.  Repair disk permissions -if similar things come up all the time, what is it?  Usually enough to fix problems.  But, if there are persistent problems, use ops disk (make sure you use the correct start up disk, must label it if you have multiple computers.)

To fix pesky problems:

1. stick in startup disk
2. restart
3. hold c key
4. disk utility from there opens, select HD-  can click verify or repair disk.

Zapping pram- pram governs settings for your computer.  if you are freezing, restart, option/apple + p+r keys  hold til chime happens it will turn off.  Hold till chimes 3 times.  May need to reset settings. (Applecare says so too).  Personal settings.  System preferences.  Desktop: Clean it up because many files on there eats up ram.  Screen saver: it only makes sure there is no image burned in your monitor.  Energy saver: recommend put on never for computer maintenance.  Chron scripts will then run if Mac is on all the time for daily/weekly/monthly maintenance.  As long as it's not sleeping, chron scripts will still be running.  After pram zapping, reset date/time.  

Maintenance program: Cocktail.  Definitely plug in your computer due to power issues, because it eats a lot of energy during backups.  Just run this, not necessary to pick special options unless you know stuff what you want to clean.  Do this 1 time a month.

Defrag the computer.  Do not use Norton Utility, not useful for Macs.  If you run intensive programs (Photoshop, Dreamweaver), putting big files on, taking them off: this is good to clean up the disk.  if you set up your computer to journal, it will defrag in the background (set this up in Disk Utility). Start up from Disk Utility and defrag from that.  Defraging takes spaces out of HD and minute instructions to look for files all over the place, which makes it run faster.  Should defrag once a year.  Backup everything beforehand. Also: Carbon Copy Cloner recommended by Patrick.  It does a copy of your system, not a bit by bit copy. 

Applecare tip: After you call them the 3rd time about the same issue, you can directly ask for Protech- they are the real experts.

We had a "Meeting in a Box" from Peachtree press.  We watched clips from a variety of software companies and highlights from MacWorld.

February 16, 2006 - Hilo Lagoon Center

This month we unveiled our new Mac Nut Learning Library that we will charge for benefits: $30/yr. Members are able to borrow for 1 mo.  Members can borrow as many as they want. Log into members section to get information on this. Steve Pollard will be our librarian. Also: we are accepting donations to the library. Have training CDs that you don't need anymore that others could use? Please consider adding those to the library.

The Q&A Section/Show and Tell:
Silver keeper is good for backups.

Email - I can download mail but not send out. You don't have the prefs from the person with the wireless connection.

Automator - for repetitive actions, make your macro, better than Apple script. More drag and drop but still hard to figure out.

iPod News! Airplay 2 - set what channel you want before you go in your car.  Next step up from iTrip.

WEP = incoding incryption

iLugger.  Big luggage for iMac.

Garage Keys.  $70 for keyboard from MacMice.  Works well with Garage Band; velocity sensing; usb connection.

Dawn upgraded to faster router. Buffalo products have much better tech support and are very plug and play.

Ann showed off her awesome run-over-by-a-vehicle Powerbook. In case you were wondering, Apple care does Not cover this.

This meeting featured Photoshop in a box from Peachpit Press. We raffled off books and club cards from Peachpit.   Thank you Peachpit!