March 2, 2010
Yes it is true.  The review is out the day after.  Can you believe it?  I told you once we got into the swing of things we would be on top of it just for you.

a big THANKS goes out to Keith Thomassen
for taking the time to inform us about Power Point.  Apparently the allotted time was not enough to cover what he had planned — the basics sometimes are not as easy as one would believe them to be all as we found out; we will need to bring Keith back for another session sometime to advance us further into the program or he can do a session privately with members that want to take their Power Point skills to the next level.

His coverage was so indepth that I actually came home and created what he did — no not the presentation Power Point he showed us at the beginning, but the one he did from scratch, since it was so stuck in my head I wanted to see if I could replicate it and I did — of course as we found out afterward, in the Q & A period, there are varying degrees of skill and experience in our members that we try to address by answering questions, going slow but not to bore the others, and putting the demonstrations online for you to analyze.

Again, a big thanks to Keith for taking the time, bringing his NEW iMac with the WIDESCREEN view that we could not see do to the age of our projectors not having the proper ports, but in time we hope to be up to date, which leads me to mention what we have in store for the APRIL MEETING.

What is in store for April?
As it looks at this time you will be stuck with me going over some basic TIPS, TRICKS, and SHORT CUTS for the operating system and some applications (becoming a power user), discussing the longevity of pre 10.6 (snow leopard for those that speak that langauge) operating systems and their hardware counterparts (I have a G4 running 10.4.11 how long am I good for?), as well as, photograph storage and filing, and new apps, tools, and websites of interest.

Jim Heck and I are working on putting together a HANDS ON TRAINING session at the MAY meeting for those who want to bring their computers to follow along with it, the subject is creating a slideshow / movie project with iMovie (no need for photoshop and so forth).  We will have pictures, video, and the project files available for everyone to be on the same page — just like a classroom feel.  If interested or not, we need feedback, please drop us a message to smmug@sierramousetrap.org.

• Other SMMUG tools to help us help you •

1. Needing a forum of sorts that works to ask questions or answer them then head on over to the NEW SMMUG GOOGLE GROUP
   
2. We have a TWITTER Account to follow, but this may not be a needed thing as you can view the info with this newsletter and on our website, so it is still in the testing phase, let us know what you think.

happy MAC computing
gerald davenport

Small History

I created a TIPS & TRICKS section for Apple Macintosh hardware and software on my site many, many years ago to archive some of the unique and useful fiddly bits that you can do with your Mac — you could say a few of them are hacks, but are safe hacks nonetheless — and all of these can be found by searching the internet, but I wanted one place for the useful ones I found.

There are sections for specific OS’s, of course the OS 7 – 9 are no longer available — I hope no one is still running OS 9 except Hollywood (yes, they still do).

There are sections for software: both Apple and 3rd Party; Finder, Maintenance and Prevention, Organization, and Fun — these are all things to make your Mac life more enjoyable, safe, and productive.

As I work on making the Tips & Tricks section easier for everyone to navigate I found one that I recently needed to use again.

Disable PDF in Safari

I do not like opening PDF files in my browser — it takes too long for them to load and I cannot view them after I shut down the browser — I like downloading them and viewing them at my leisure — this allows me to download as many as I choose in a short period of time and I can open them up in my preferred application without any waiting or slow navigation through the pdf file itself — this speeds up my productivity as time is money and on any day at any hour or minute we can easily get sidetracked and forget what are main task was if we have to wait any extended period of time for anything, so I click the link, download the file, and move on.

You can use a simple Terminal edit to disable Safari from natively browsing PDF files, so that you can use Acrobat or any other PDF viewer that you might have available.

Quit Safari

Run Terminal or iTerm and type the following:

defaults write com.apple.Safari WebKitOmitPDFSupport -bool YES

Restart Safari.

---

If you want to revert this process, you can quit Safari, run Terminal and type the same command with the value NO instead of YES.

- Peace

- Gerald Davnport

Our meeting for Monday, March 1, 2010 will be held at Madelyn Helling Library located at 980 Helling Way, Nevada City 95959, again, we seem to have made up our mind to keep it there — where else can you get what we get for $10 an hour?
We have Keith Thomassen ready to show us some power point tips and tricks with his new adaptor so we see the full effect of the wide screen display. (check out his tutorial before hand Power Point Presentation Demo by Keith Thommassen)
I may do a short presentation on shortcuts or how you can do what he did in iPhoto if you do not have anything else other than iPhoto — no photoshop or the like.
WE WILL BE HAVING A QUESTION AND ANSWER PERIOD this week… At least 45 minutes to an hour of it, so bring your questions and troubles and for those in the know, bring your best critical thinking skills.

This all starts at 7pm at Madelyn Helling Library located at 980 Helling Way, Nevada City 95959. see you there.

Attention everyone.

We will be meeting at the Madelyn Helling Library located at 980 Helling Way, Nevada City 95959
again, in Nevada City for the February 1st meeting.

from 7 – 9pm (there is nothing from 6 – 7: this saves us some money)

We had a great Meeting last night. We elected the officers again President is Gerry Davenport, VP is still Rick Hartmann and Secretary is still John Murray.

Rich Webster will be missed as President but has an open invitation to attend and be welcomed as one of our top demonstrators when ever he wishes.

This was the largest member turn out in 6 months almost everyone paid there membership dues. And we now have cash but not enough for the whole year at the Library  which is $360/year.

The members wanted a one time trial at the three other places. The February meeting on the first will be @ Moule’s Paint and Glass in GV (700 Main St)(Wi-Fi? & restroom).

There will be a meeting Monday, January 4th, 7pm. There will be a demo on iPhoto by Keith Tomassen, and Rick Hartmann will also have some great technical material for us…

We did not have a meeting in December, due to weather.

There has been some discussion of changing date/time/location to save money, and grow membership. Bring your ideas!

Because the library is closed today, due to snow, we won’t be having our meeting tonight. We’ll see you all January 4th, 7pm, as usual.

Other news: Our member and friend Joe Krenovsky died Nov. 12th, of a brain aneurysm.  He received care early and passed peacefully within 40 hours, I’m told. We’ll miss him.

Due to the lack of a meeting tonight, we’ll plan on discussing who will be able to take charge of the group, and how things will go in the coming year, at the January meeting. For those who missed it: I’m stepping down as president, after a very long time. John Murray is willing to stay on as Secretary. Rick Hartmann (VP) has been busy with school, which will continue, so he can’t run most meetings. Gerald Davenport is willing to step up and do “whatever’s necessary”, but he’ll need help. I’d also suggest we check with the library to see if another meeting night is consistently available… it seems the switch to Mondays was inconvenient for many members. Another meeting room option has come up, suggested by Gerald… that might really help boost membership… but the main thing is missing is PR.

If you can help, please come to the Monday meeting with your suggestions and what you can commit to every month.

Thanks!

-Rich

Madelyn Helling Library Community Room. Everyone is welcome!

Discussion of upcoming Snow Leopard features plus the usual mutual support discussions and exploring whatever people need to know.