Aoraki Macintosh User Group Home Page

Snippets from Previous Meetings

FOR SALE

Sheryl Roberts has - as usual - an extensive variety of pre-loved Macs, both desktops and laptops. She has on display a number of very reasonably-priced software titles, mainly children's applications, but also others of general interest: eg 'Over 4000 Works of Literature' CD (Win/Mac) containing many complete novels, plays, poems and short stories, all for $9:95!!
Contact: or Phone 03 689 4824.

iLIFE'04 IN THE CLASSROOM - SPECIAL OFFER!

At the Apple Education NZ conference earlier this month Tony had opportunity to view and order this highly-recommended new manual to the iLife '04 'creative tools' bundle of software - iLife '04includes new versions of iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie and iDVD, as well as the new music-creating application Garage Band. These applications are great tools with great on-line Help menus, but some people find a manual useful to help them become familiar with the complexities of new programs. This single volume clearly and explicitly covers all of the iLife applications, as well as a section on the iPod MP3 player. Although entitled 'iLife in the Classroom' because it contains a small section of classroom lesson plans, this book is a valuable resource for any Macuser. It also contains an instructional DVD (for those who donÕt like actually reading manuals!)

At the time of the conference there was just one inspection copy in the country, but fortunately Tony's ordered copies (for himself and for Geraldine Primary School) arrived in time for this month's AMUG meeting and members were able to see for themselves how useful it is.

Knowing that some AMUG members were likely to be interested in buying this book, Tony contacted Apple Ed.NZ to enquire if members could order further copies at the special education price of $NZ39.95 (+GST & freight), and the answer was 'yes'. Nine copies were promptly ordered by members present at the meeting!

If any other members would like to order a copy, please let Tony know by this coming Friday, 6 August, and he'll send a bulk order to Apple Ed.NZ. Payment will be on delivery (which will depend on whether stocks are left of the 100 copies which arrived last week, or if a further batch needs to be imported). So far, this book is not able to be purchased elsewhere in NZ (however, it is available from Amazon.com, but that would include freight from USA on a single copy!).
iLIFE '04 SOFTWARE

The iLife '04 group of applications is bundled with most new Mac computers. Users who have older versions of iMovie, iTunes and iPhoto who wish to take advantage of the additional features of new versions (such as in iPhoto 4) can buy the whole iLife '04 package directly from:

Apple NZ's info on their website:

iLife '04 Retail Single User

Five remarkable applications that integrate seamlessly so you can do amazing things with your music, photos, and movies. Organize all your pictures. Import and listen to your favorite songs. Create your own music from scratch or with help from the pros. Make the ultimate movie from your raw video. And burn it all to DVD to share with family and friends. NZ $85.00 +GST

N.B. Garage Band: Although the other iLife applications will happily run on older Mac computers running MacOS X, Garage Band is particularly demanding on processing power. It will run on 700MHz machines, but performs better with 1GHz+.

STARTING WITH A SONG

Sheryl showed us how to have a favourite song or piece of music playing automatically when starting up a Mac (running on Panther Ð MacOS 10.3):
  1. Go to Apple Menu/System Preferences/Accounts and (if needed) select your account.
  2. Click the Startup Items tab, then click the plus button immediately below to add a new startup item.
  3. Navigate to your iTunes Music folder and select the music or song you want.
The next time you start up, Panther will launch iTunes and play the selected song. To change your startup song, follow the directions above, delete the current song from the Startup Items list, and choose an alternate song.

SESSIONS

QUESTIONS, (some) ANSWERS and HINTS

A variety of topics were raised, including a further look at Print settings and associated problems. Some Printing solutions suggested included:
  • Page Setup: always check this when changing files from one computer to another, as some applications don't always seem to transfer this info, and consequently formatting is affected.
  • Default Paper Size: if this defaults wrongly, check in the Print Centre settings for the particular printer being used.
  • Printing in Reverse Page Order: as noted last month, this can be controlled (in MacOS X) by going to the Paper Handling printing option, and unchecking the 'Reverse Page Order' tick-box. However, you may also need to ensure that in the 'Copies and Pages' print menu, the 'Collated' box is unchecked.
  • Excel Spreadsheets: note that the default for the printing of row numbers/column headings is 'Off', which is the opposite to the similar default for AppleWorks.
  • Omitted Letters & Lines: if the last letters in lines or last lines on pages are left off when printing, check the Page Setup, which may be wrongly set.
  • Printing from Acrobat Reader 6: some MacOS X users have experienced problems when printing PDF files from Acrobat Reader 6. If this happens, use Preview to open and print the PDF file.
Some other topics discussed included:
  • iBook Problems: users experiencing operating problems with their iBook should check the Apple Support website to see if their particular model is affected by known problems.
  • Security Update: this is included in the latest update for Panther (MacOS 10.3.4).
  • TechTools Pro4: suggested as a possible solution for some software/operating problems. Available from Micronet.com
  • Fax Software: remember that this is included in the MacOS X. Turn it on in System Preferences. When sending a fax, if no subject is entered then no cover page will be sent.
  • Copying from PDF Files: when copying from PDF files containing both text and graphics, these need to be copied separately. Acrobat Reader and Preview both include separate Text and Graphic selection tools in their toolbars. Note that when using the graphic selection tool (in either application) it is necessary to select the desired graphic by dragging over it, not by just clicking on it.
  • Rearranging the Menu Bar: in MacOS X the order of the Menu Bar icons may be rearranged by holding down the Apple key while dragging them to a new position. Positioning the Modem icon on the extreme right of the bar prevents it from disappearing when the Menu Bar items in some applications take up most of the space!
  • Clock Preferences: these can be set in the Date & Time System Preferences. Remember that the clock/calendar can be shown as a separate window instead of in the Menu Bar.
iPHOTO4

Following his attendance at a recent Apple Education iSchools conference for teachers, Tony explained some of iPhoto4's advanced capabilities for storing, organising, editing and presenting digital images. Many of the features were not available in earlier the versions (the original iPhoto and iPhoto 2 - there was no iPhoto3, in case you're wondering).

Aspects covered included viewing the Library as film rolls (unusual nomenclature, as digital images don't involve film!), naming, arranging, rating and editing of images, and slideshow presentations with their associated musical settings from iTunes. Albums (folders of images selected from the Library) and Smart Albums (folders of images automatically selected according to desired criteria) were demonstrated. Smart Albums really are smart - add new images which fit the given criteria to the Library at a later date, and they will automatically be included in the relevant Smart Album.

The various export options were explored, as these include sending elsewhere in file format, as a QuickTime movie, or sending to a web page in HTML form (in seconds... unbelievably easy!!!).

E-mailing of images is easily arranged with several mouse-clicks to select size options. Sheryl contributed the useful hint that although iPhoto4 will create small-sized e-mail files of images within the application (eg. 60KB for a 240x320 pixel image), an even smaller image can be obtained from an iPhoto Thumbnails folder - only 20KB! These thumbnail images are adequate for e-mail, but are not suitable for printing. An example of a 20KB file:


(Sunrise over Te Waewae Bay, Southland, from the HumpRidge Track, if anyone's interested)

[Locating these Thumbnails takes some navigating... find them using the following path (inserting relevant data to items in quotes): ÊHard Drive/Users/"User Name"/Pictures/iPhoto Library/"year"/"month"/"day"/Thumbs folder (at bottom)/"filename", then Option-drag the fileÕs icon to the desktop to copy it Ð donÕt just drag it out or the orginal thumbnail loses its position in iPhoto. Apart from the procedure just described, it's advisable to leave the HD iPhoto files strictly alone!]

The options for printing are particularly user-friendly in iPhoto 4, and have a variety of built-in 'styles' available. The facility for arranging and printing an entire book was also covered.

Two useful features which Tony didn't have time to cover, but are worth knowing about are Keywords and Batch Change. Any of a number of Keywords can be assigned to images, and this enables Smart Albums to select all images about skiing or sunsets, for example. Batch change enables data (title/date/comments) to be applied to many images simultaneously, and will also automatically number them if desired Ð great when handling large quantities of files.

Tony introduced the session by presenting a short slideshow which his class of 7-year-olds compiled last week using iPhoto4. The children took the images (including macro photography) themselves, then downloaded them into iPhoto, edited, enhanced and cropped them, then assembled the slideshow for presentation. The technologies of digital cameras + Apple software now provide powerful tools for users of any age! Some examples from the presentation:









Seven year-olds took these!
REMINDERS

Remember to:
  • Continue to send in suggestions for the proposed October combined AMUG/AUGC meeting.
  • (if you wish to) order iLife '04 in the Classroom by Friday 6 August.


Next AMUG Evening meeting will be on Friday August 27, 2004

Next AMUG Daytime Meeting is yet to be announced

[Committee Meeting on Mactropolis:  Tuesday August 17 at 9:00pm

Regards to all....

Secretary: Tony Climo, Aoraki MacIntosh Users Group