Snippets from Previous Meetings
PRESIDENTS REPORT
FOR SALE
Sheryl, as usual, has a variety of used hardware available. She also showed a variety of very reasonably-priced children's software.
Contact Sheryl if interested:
QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
Robin had a query concerning problems with some floppy disks not being recognised. It was suggested that newer disk drives do not recognise the old 800Kb single-sided floppies.
Another query was about how to convert DOS document files into Claris/AppleWorks format. One solution is to go to Save As... And use the File Format options, which enable conversion of files to a variety of formats.
ONLINE BANKING
Sheryl gave an outline of Online Banking, and explained how she makes use of it for her business accounts and payments. Online Banking is similar to Telephone Banking, but is of course visual instead of aural (which makes a difference when viewing a statement, instead of listening to a list of the last 15 transactions!)
Using the ANZ website, Sheryl showed their online demonstration of the facilities available to view account balances and transactions, to make payments (either one-off or regular), to transfer funds between accounts, etc. She commented on the convenience of online banking, particularly as a country customer, with the services being available when you want them, not just during bank opening hours.
Facilities with other banks are basically similar, with some varieties in the format and services available. Other members commented briefly on their experiences with several other banks.
DEMONSTRATION HARDWARE
Sheryl kindly arranged for two items of hardware to be made available for members to inspect:
Les Lamb's G4 PowerMac tower: This is a high-performance dual processor computer, and is more likely to be for specialised or professional rather than home use.
An eMac Computer from Infovision Technology of Christchurch. This is also a G4 computer, but is an all-in-one machine, similar to the iMac. It was designed to be a low-cost but fast-processing, large (17") flat screen computer for educational use only; however, Apple realised that the demand for such a computer was more than just in schools, and recently made it generally available. In addition to ordinary CDs, the demonstration model was capable of both recording and playing and recording DVD-ROMs (digital video disks). Thank you to Sheryl for arranging for this demonstration hardware to be available.
DVD-ROM and DVD-VIDEO
The demonstration eMac computer gave Sheryl an opportunity to introduce us to the field of DVD: the recording of digital video on special disks (DVD-ROMs), using applications such as iDVD.
DVD is a special high-quality format method of recording digital video, and allows more advanced handling of video than Quicktime. Applications such as iMovie can be used to assemble videos, and then iDVD is then used to record them on DVD-ROM disks, which can each store up to one hour of video.
A iDVD player control window
The iDVD player is able to retrieve videos from disk, and gives a variety of facilities for previewing, scanning and displaying them. We plan to find out more about this at one of next yearÕs meetings (when SherylÕs had more chance to ÔplayÕ with it!)
As usual at our Annual meeting, members shared an enjoyable and tasty supper. Thanks to all for their contributions.
REMINDER
Next meeting is on Friday January 31 at 7:30 pm - ALL WELCOME - BRING A FRIEND
Next AMUG Daytime Meeting is in FEBRUARY Please phone Barry (03) 688 3612, prior to the meeting.
[Committee Meeting on Mactropolis: to be announced Please mark your calendar
Happy MacComputing..... Regards to all....
Tony Climo
Secretary, Aoraki MacIntosh Users Group