Aoraki Macintosh User Group Home Page

Snippets from Previous Meetings

October Meeting 2004

AN INVITATION TO AUGC SATURDAY MEETINGS

The Christchurch-based Apple Users Group of Canterbury (AUGC) have given an invitation to AMUG members to attend their special club meetings held on Saturday afternoons following their monthly club meetings. As they meet on the last Wednesday of each month, their Saturday meetings are usually on the day following our own AMUG monthly club meeting.

REPORT ON AMUG/AUGC WORKSHOP DAY

Barry gave a brief report on the combined AMUG/AUGC Workshop day held in Christchurch on Saturday 16 October. Seven AMUG members attended this meeting, which was a good opportunity to get to know some Christchurch Macusers, to share expertise, and to learn of "things Mac" generally. Informal sessions during the day included the use of applications such as InDesign (on which AUGC's "AppleByte" is published), iTunes, iPhoto and FileMaker Pro.

Contact was also made with some Ashburton Macusers (mentioned above), who expressed interest in attending some AMUG meetings Ð they were (of course) given an open invitation to do so.

NOVEMBER AMUG A.G.M.

Barry reminded members that next monthÕs meeting is the club's A.G.M., and volunteers for the Committee will be called for. Please either send in nominations (to Tony), or be ready to offer your services at the A.G.M.

Please consider assisting with the organization of the club, as lately the arrangements have increasingly been left to a few members. It's not expertise that's needed, but a willingness to suggest ideas for meeting sessions.

Being on the committee only involves taking part in a half-hour Mactropolis Chat session during the week prior to the club meeting. Have a go!

G4 iBOOK MODELS & PRICES

Sheryl sent in the following advertising information on the new iBook G4 models:

Built for life on the go, iBook G4 lets you surf the web, check for email, create your own songs in GarageBand, do your homework, burn a DVD, videoconference with your professor, edit a documentary for your history class. And then iBook G4 slips comfortably in your backpack, ready for its next digital assignment.

All grown up, but still the same petite size, the new models of our popular iBook G4 computers:
  • Boast faster processors, up to 1.33GHz
  • Feature AirPort Extreme, now standard on all models
  • Offer large hard drives, up to 60GB
  • Provide up to 6 hours of industry-leading battery life
  • Come with iLife '04 preinstalled

Our "best" model even comes with a slot-loading SuperDrive. And with pricing starting at just $1805 +GST, that makes the iBook G4 the most affordable digital studio to go.

http://www.apple.co.nz/hardware/ibook/

QUESTIONS, (some) ANSWERS and HINTS

This discussion session covered several problems, hints and suggestions. Some of the points raised included:

Menu Bar Font Sizes:
A problem had arisen during a transfer operation between two Macs, with Menu Bar text and icons having resized themselves to a very small appearance, although the main part of the screen wasnÕt affected. Although no solutions were able to be offered, the problem could be allied to the setting of the display resolution (see below). [STOP PRESS... have just heard that resetting the screen resolution has in fact rectified this problem. T.C.]

Renewal of Norton Antivirus Sub:
How do you renew a Norton Antivirus subscription without waiting until the current subscription has expired? Nortons send a sub reminder, but only after the sub expires. ÊIt was suggested that a visit to the Nortons website would probably be able to offer a solution.

Slow-Running Macs:
What can you do when your Mac (running MacOS X) seems to be slowing down? One solution can be to repair the Disk Permissions, which can sometimes become corrupt. To do this:


  1. Open the Disk Utility application: Êfind this in Hard Drive/Applications/Utilities.
  2. Click on your HD icon (near the top left of the Disk Utility window) to select it.
  3. Click on the Verify Disk Permissions button, and Disk Utility will check your HD - this make take some time, maybe 10 minutes or longer.
  4. When this had been completed, click on the Repair Disk Permissions button, and any corrupt permissions detected will be repaired - this can also take some time.

Also recommended for clean-up jobs on your Mac is the Onyx application, which is able to remedy a variety of problems.

Members may recall the discussion at the May meeting about a slow-down when opening AppleWorks, due to it remembering recent items. Kim has written a small (20KB) AppleScript which automatically deletes the unwanted aliases on startup. Please let me know if you would like this, and I'll e-mail it to you - T.C.
SESSIONS

MacBASICS ~ SCREEN RESOLUTIONS

Discussion was held on screen resolutions and the effect of changing them using the (MacOS X) System Preferences/Displays panel. Some older software requires lower resolutions (eg. 640 x 480 - this being the number of pixels across and down the screen respectively), and some applications give a warning dialogue of the need to change. Others change the setting automatically, and reset to the original resolution when the application quits.

Many newer applications require a higher setting - notably some of the iLife apps: iMovie4 will not open with less than 1024 x 768; iPhoto will open, but not all of the buttons are visible; Garage Band needs a high resolution because of the large amount of on-screen information it displays.

Screen Contrast and Brightness are also controlled from within the Displays Panel. Remember that Screen Contrast can also be controlled directly from the keyboard by pressing function keys F14 (lower contrast) or F15 (higher contrast).

Apart from using Screen Resolution settings, the size of screen objects can be controlled by using Screen Zoom. This can be turned on in the System Preferences by opening the Universal Access panel, which assists users with seeing/hearing or other difficulties (note that on this panel the computer automatically speaks the text when the cursor points to it).

Click on the Seeing button at the top of the panel if it is not already selected, and then Click the Turn on Zoom button. Activate the zoom by pressing Option Command + (zoom in) or Option Command - (zoom out). NB Keyboards vary... on an eMac keyboard the +/- keys on the number keypad can be used, but not on an older iMac, which requires the =/- keys on the main keypad to be used. Further controls are available by clicking the Zoom Options button.

MAKING ANIMATIONS

Tony gave a demonstration of how a series of still images taken with a digital video camera can be used to make an animated sequence, and he concluded the session by showing some examples of various types of animation.

Digital still camera images can be used also, but if the resulting animation is to be edited in iMovie, then using a movie camera has the advantage that the images are already in the correct format for being imported into iMovie.



An application called BTV Pro is used to capture the series of images. Once the camera is set up, the application's onscreen controls are used to preview the images, 'capture' (take) them, automatically number them, and save them on the computer.

Next, another application called FrameSplicer is used to convert the sequence of still images into a QuickTime movie. This movie can be used on its own, but if further editing (sequencing, titles, audio track, effects, etc) is desired, then FrameSplicer is again used, this time to convert the QuickTime movie into a DV Stream. This is necessary so that it can be imported into iMovie, where the above effects (and more) can be added Ð TonyÕs demo stopped at this stage, as working with iMovie is a major topic on its own!

Animations can be made using various media, such as plastic figures, clay models, pipe-cleaner shapes and paper cut-outs... the scope is limited only by the imagination. Children come up with amazing ideas!


REMINDERS

Remember to:

Next AMUG Evening meeting will be on Friday November 26, 2004 7.30pm.

Next AMUG Daytime Meeting will be on Monday November 15, at Neil Trower's home

[Committee Meeting on Mactropolis:  Tuesday November 16 at 9:00pm

Regards to all....

Secretary: Tony Climo, Aoraki MacIntosh Users Group