May 6th, 2013 Meeting

April 22nd, 2013

Our next meeting will be Monday May 6th at the Briar Patch Community Room from 6:30 to 8:30

John Hart will be giving a presentation showing some of the many capabilities that the application Preview has to offer. Since it is included in our Mac software it is important to know that you can do many more services other that just opening pdf. documents.
Preview makes it easy to read Portable Document Files (PDFs) and open popular image files (including JPEG, TIFF, and PNG). More than just a file viewer, Preview offers essential editing capabilities, such as resizing, rotation and cropping, and even lets you add annotations to share your comments. Learn how to use Preview to work with your PDFs and image files.

We will also see how we can add “signatures” to our documents when the need arises.

Here is a good tutorial to show what we will be discussing: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2506

Of course we will have a time for questions and (hopefully) answers along with a few quick tips.

April 2013 Meeting

April 3rd, 2013

Here is a recap of Mondays Meeting.
Keith gave a very good presentation about 1Password and how the application can make your passwords more secure. He made a very good PowerPoint slide show for the presentation and it is available by contacting me for a copy as it is too large to attach here. He also told us about two articles in the newest Mac World Magazine regarding security and I am able to provide those on request as well.
Next month we will be discussing the advantages of editing documents using the Preview Application.
Katie Guilliat

March 4th, 2013 Meeting Agenda

February 24th, 2013

1. Questions from Members
2. Finger swipes on the trackpad (Keith Thomassen)
3. Hacking problem on e-mails (Bill Yanko)
4. Creating a pdf from multiple files (Keith Thomassen)

February 5th, 2013

There were many new items of interest.
Keith gave a brief demo of Drop Box
Katie gave several short tips for Mt. Lion and Scott Taylor gave a presentation on sharing iCloud documents, protecting and saving passwords, new contents of 10.8 like the Notification Center, contact photos and messaging, “Notes”, iChat Message center, a VIP list in your Mail program, the advanced combined search bar in Safari, new screen savers, and new preferences.
If anyone would like the keynote presentation please contact Katie Guilliat for a copy as it is to large to include.

Rick talked about special ways to add keyboard additions to our written text. You need to get a copy of Onyx (free). Go to the Parameters section, General tab. Check the “Turn On Accent Picker from the Keyboard” checkbox.

February 4th, 2013 Meeting

January 23rd, 2013

Here is the agenda for February 4th, 2013

1. Tip of the day from Keith

2. Tips from Katie;

File path in Spotlight
Emoji’s in Character Viewer
Mail Downloads
“Save As” in Preview
Screen Shots
quick preview in finder

3. Featured Speaker; Scott Taylor

My 14 Favorites in Mtn Lion
How to set up iCloud

4. More keyboard shortcuts from Rick

January 7, 2013 Meeting

December 30th, 2012

Dear Members,

Our next meeting will be January 7th at the Briar Patch Co Op.

Agenda

1. A Potpourri of Tips and Tricks by Keith Thomassen

?Duplicating files (?D), Delete File or Folder (??), Empty Trash (???) ?Using ?A, ?W, and ?E
?How to type ?, ? ——— Character and Keyboard Viewer
?Shift, Option, Control keys with menu choices (Example; PDF slideshow) ?Wrap text around a picture in Word, Pages

?The two formats for Pages (Word Processing, Page Layout)
?How to send a big file with Dropbox, and how to use Dropbox to put a pdf file in iBooks on your iPad.

2. A Questionnaire on Computer Use

Please fill out the questionnaire on your Mac usage.

3. Discussion on Topics for Mac Club

What are your top three things you want presented at the Club?

4. Time Permitting, Rick Hartmann will give us a couple of security tips.

Remember, your dues of $20 are now due for 2013.
Please make checks payable to “Cash” and, if not attending the meeting, mail to:
Sierra Mousetrap Mac User Group
10897 Walker Drive
Grass Valley, Ca. 95945

Be sure to mark your Calendar for January 7th at the Briar Patch

NEW MEETING PLACE Starting in December

November 16th, 2012

ALERT There is a new Meeting Place for our Mac User Group starting with December 3rd, 2012

Place: Briar Patch Community Room
BriarPatch Co-op
290 Sierra College Drive, Suite A
Grass Valley, CA 95945

Time: The 1st Monday of Every Month from 6:30 to 8:30 (last 15 minutes will be used for clean up)

Our next meeting will be our “Christmas Party” meeting. We will be having our party at our NEW meeting place which will be the Briar Patch Co Op.
Visit the Community Room Calendar: http://www.briarpatch.coop/community/community-room/

There will be several advantages by moving there.
1. We won’t have to reschedule every time the library wants to use our scheduled time.
2. We can have dinner prior to the meeting (or after, for those night owls).
3. We can shop for goodies
4. We will be more centrally located.

Be sure to mark your Calendar for December 3rd at the Briar Patch

See you at the Christmas Party!

Katie Guilliat

Introduction to Incoming President Keith Thomassen

November 9th, 2012

I would like to introduce Keith Thomassen, our nominated Presidential Candidate for 2013.

Keith is presently the owner of Thomassen Consulting, which deals with GPS Navigational systems. This is his “retirement job”! Visit www.avionicswest.com for more.

Keith has a PhD in Electrical Engineering and has had many exciting jobs and teaching positions in the US and beyond prior to his semi-retirement in 2002.

Keith’s passion is flying and he can often be found at the airport where he is either working on his airplanes or getting ready to go somewhere. The instrument panel in his Lancair is something to behold.

I have been privileged to get to know both Keith and his wife Christine over the past several years. His quest for knowledge is infectious and, lucky for us, he is trying to learn, and help us learn, “everything Mac”.

I’m sure he will be up for the task!

Submitted by, Your “Out Going” 2012 President, Katie Guilliat

Meeting Notes from the Oct. 24, 2012 Meeting

November 5th, 2012

SMMUG Meeting Notes, Oct. 24, 2012

Ooma Phone is now $129 and can be used in place of your house land line. It is a forever contract which replaces your monthly expenses. A DSL in not a phone, it just comes through your phone line. Ooma gets the signal from your computer DSL modem. You plug the Ooma Phone into the modem (may need adapter). Call Katie Guilliat if you need more info) You can plug a regular phone into the Ooma Phone modem and then into your computer. Then it serves as a landline.

Verizon Jet Pack WiFi router with its own network has 5 gigabytes (they lease it to you for about $200) has a modem that gives a signal from a cell tower to a computer. It will serve about 5 devices. Call Keith Thomasse. It is a server. $30/mo for 5 gigs of dataplan. For $50 you can serve 10 devices. You own it, but they have a monthly fee. You can travel with it. It’s a mobile hot spot. (An iPhone can be made a hotspot for $10/mo. (5 gigabytes). Don’t stream with it, it’s just for data. ) Dish has another different package. If you go too far off the beaten path, it won’t work. There’s FoxFi for Droid phones that gives an access point to computers. The audio and video on SKYPE is excellent because it doesn’t use bandwidth. The data contract has a lot to do with your capability. There are different tethering methods-an antenna and a USB port for the iPhone. The cell phone plugs into the USB port with an antenna. You don’t need that with the JetPack. Full Spectrum pays for its bandwidth from AT&T. Katie went with Spiral (subsidiary of AT&T); call ISP provider. Point of contact is whoever you pay the money to. Call DSL and they call AT&T if that is your phone landline server.

To use a different camera that takes a horizontal video, drag it from iPhoto to your desktop. Then go to iMovie, and drag it from the desktop into a “new project” in iMovie.

Keith Thomassen was nominated for 2013 President and has accepted the nomination.

John will try to get a refund from the Library for December. If we can’t get a refund, we could have the party at the library. Keith, Rick and John will be our 2013 officers. Rick is Vice-Pres, and John is Secy-Treas.

If you have a 21.5 or 27 in. iMac, put your serial number in, and you can see if it can iMac TB Seagate Hard Drive Replacement Program at www.apple.com, or http://www.apple.com/support/imac-harddrive/ . Go to about this Mac to get your serial #. Click on version and it tells you what the serial # is. If you go to Service it will tell you if you are still under warranty. In the Overview and click “More Information” you get this. You can check to see at www.selfsolve.apple.com also.

Junk mail: use www.google.com/intl/en/about/products/ Use the “Web Page” Picassa piles up junk mail. Use Google.com, click on “more”, then on “even more”.

Scroll through Traffic, Terrain, Satellite vs Mapview, etc. Sign up for Google Voice and it will list all of your phone numbers. Someone who has a cell phone can call one number and all of my phones will ring at the same time. The app for iTunes has the new Version 1.4.2 and there is a low rate for free text messages to US phones and international calls. It can be accessed from your iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. This number does you no good, unless you put your other phone numbers into it. If you go to https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/google-voice/id318698524?mt=8 you can download the app into your iTunes. SKYPE is still free, and this is not, for international calls. Google also has “maps for mobile” at www.google.com/mobile/

If you see a gear icon in the upper right on a page, it leads you to learning more. Go to support.google.com/?hl=en to find a lot of icons to support what you want to access including voice. Support.google .com/help. YouTube, Drive (similar to Dropbox). Google offers 5 gigabytes of storage and Dropbox only offers 2 gigabytes.

ALERT November Smmug Meeting ON OCTOBER 29th

October 26th, 2012

Due to the upcoming elections in November, the Library will not be available on our regular meeting time of the 1st Monday of the month…. so our November meeting, will be next Monday, the 29th of October.

This is the month that we have elections for the 2013 officers so come prepared to participate. If anyone thinks they might be interested in holding a position of President or Vice President please plan on attending this meeting so we can give you encouragement!

For this meeting Rick Hartmann, our illustrious Vice President, is planning on doing more with advanced search techniques, Google Maps (there’s a lot there), Google Phone, Google Drive, Picasa and maybe Google Docs.

He’ll also spend a little time on Mtn. Lion. We should also continue to explore mainstream third party applications and utilities like Google products and other applications that run locally. He will do a comparison of DropBox and Google Drive. They do the same thing but in slightly different ways.

We will have our usual “question / answer” session for those of you who may need some help or share an experience that may benefit us all. So bring your questions, your note pads and your computers for an interesting meeting.

Also I would like to remind you that it is time to pay your dues for next year. Since we are required to pay for our meeting rooms in advance, and our coffers are running dry, it would be helpful if everyone bring $20 for their membership fee. Checks are acceptable but need to be made out to cash with a note at the bottom for the purpose. For those members unable to attend the next meeting you can mail your membership dues to John Murray, 10897 Walker Drive,
Grass Valley, Ca. 95945

There is also talk of a new meeting place so you will want to hear about that. So please try to attend this meeting and show your support to the club, meet with your friends, and learn new “stuff”.