Aoraki Macintosh User Group Home Page

Snippets from Previous Meetings

E-mail

APPLEBYTE ONLINE

The Christchurch-based Apple User Group of Canterbury (AUGC) monthly magazine Applebyte in is available in PDF format. To download the August issue click on this link: http://www.appleusers.co.nz/pdfs/AUGCApplebyte200808.pdf
The public archive of all issues of Applebyte since 2006 is available at http://www.appleusers.co.nz/archive.php

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Several computing queries and suggested solutions included:

SCANNER WON'T WORK

My scanner used to work well, but now it won't — what can do?

There's several things you can try...

• You man need to update your scanner's driver: a possible update your computer's system software may cause your scanne's driver to no longer work — try looking on the scanner manufacturer's website for a new driver for your model.
• Use Image Capture to operate your scanner, if possible: this application is part of your Mac's software, and should be found in the Applications folder. It is used to transfer images from external devices (mainly scanners or cameras) into the computer, and contains generic drives which will often work if the manufacturer's driver (which may predate your computer's system software) doesn't.
• Use Vuescan, a commercial application which was described at the March 2007 AMUG meeting: [reprinted from the Minutes]:

VueScan,is a versatile scanning application that is able to produce very high quality scans from almost any scanner (old or new), usually better than the original software. Reviews rate its features, interface, performance and value for money as extremely good. Having an application like this gets around the problem of the scanner software becoming outdated in relation to the computer's operating system, and at $US40 it's good value if doing an amount of scanning which needs to be of high quality. Visit the developer's website: http://www.hamrick.com/index.html

UNREADABLE E-MAIL ATTACHMENTS

Sometimes when I sent files attached to e-mail messages, my friends can't read them. How can I stop this happening?

You need to stop it happening if you still want to have friends! Some things to be aware of:

• Whatever files you send, the recipient needs to have an appropriate application to open then — so it's no use sending either AppleWorks or Pages files to a PC-user (but see below). If you're sending Microsoft Word documents, they may not necessarily be able to opened by a recipient's earlier version (eg. Windows 95). You may need to ask your friends what software they are using.
• If you send files in PDF (Portable Document File) format, almost any user should be able to open them, either with a PDF-viewer application such as Apple's Preview or in a web browser. Any printable document (no matter which application you used to create it) select PDF in the Print dialog:

• You can export both Pages and AppleWorks documents in Microsoft Word format: in Pages use the File/Export menu and click the Word tab; in AppleWorks go to Save As and select from the File Format drop-down menu.
• For text-only files you can also send in RTF (Rich Text Format) and Plain Text formats — these can be opened by most word processors if editing is required. RTF format was developed by Microsoft for cross-platform document interchange.

TOO MANY EVENTS

When I updated my to iPhoto 08 I ended up with a whole lot of Events that I don't want — what can I do about them?

• Events are an organising method which iPhoto 08 uses to sort out images which are taken on different dates — it can do this automatically as they are imported from your camera, if you choose. However, when you upgrade, iPhoto 08 takes all your existing library of images and sorts them out into Events by date — whether you want them or not. Combine them simply by dragging one event onto another.

SAVING VIDEO

After IÕve viewed a video tutorial downloaded from the Web, how can I save it for future reference?

• When you view video material online it is cached (temporarily stored, but not saved) on your computer. In order to save it you need a Video Downloader, and you may also need extra software to view the saved file — details on these were given in the recent AMUG May 2008 session on Web Video Dowwnloaders: go to our website Archives on this link: http://www.aorakimacuser.orconhosting.net.nz/2008/May_2008.html

Thank you to the various members who helped in this session.

SESSIONS

MacBASICS ~ PREVIEW, COVERFLOW & QUICKLOOK

Barry explained and compared the MacOS X facilities for visually examining the contents of files within the Finder: Preview, Coverflow and Quick Look. None of these requires the opening of the application associated with the file(s).

PREVIEW

(Not to be confused with the application of the same name, which opens PFD files, images etc). In Finder windows when Column View is used, a file's preview is displayed in the next column to the right of the selected file, together with information about the file. If the file does not have its own preview (eg. text document) then a generic icon for the application which created the file will be shown. Previews of movie files allow the video to be played in miniature, together with the soundtrack. Audio files are previewed as a Play button, which allow the content to be heard. If the Preview column for a file doesn't appear, go to View/Show View Options menu, and tick the Show Preview Column checkbox.

COVERFLOW

Coverflow is a feature introduced with MacOS 10.5 (Leopard) which enables you to quickly scroll through a series of visual previews in order to select files. As in Preview, you can play movie files within Coverflow, but unlike Preview you can't play audio files. Coverflow was originally introduced in iTunes to allow music files to be quickly accessed by finding their album artwork, and has now become a Finder feature. Of course this type of ‘flip-through’ file selection is used in the ‘ltouch’fl screens on iPhones and iPod Touch:

QUICK LOOK

This is another new Leopard feature which lets you look at the contents of files without opening them. From the Apple website:

Take a Quick Look

How do you quickly find a photo without opening them one at a time?

Let Quick Look help you. A new feature in Leopard, Quick Look lets you browse files — photos, Pages documents, Keynote presentations, QuickTime movies, Microsoft Word and Excel files — without having to open an application. Here's how:

In the Finder, open the folder that contains the item you hope to find. Select a photo; then click the Quick Look button in the folder's toolbar (or press Command-Y). Leopard instantly opens a Quick Look window with the photo you selected.

Not the photo you were looking for? Just click another. Quick Look keeps the preview window open, letting you click photos until you find the one you want.

The Quick Look button in a Finder window's toolbar looks like this:

If it doesn't appear in the toolbar, make sure that you've clicked on the window to make it active (so that its title appears in black, not grey), then go to View menu and select Customise Toolbar, and drag the Quick Look icon to the toolbar (or select the default toolbar, which already contains the icon).

If you select a group of image files simultaneously, Quick Look gives you the options of either displaying them in succession as a slideshow, or as an Index Sheet (thumbnails all at once). You also have the the option of adding the displayed image(s) directly to iPhoto:

Thank you Barry for explaining these features.

E-MAIL ETIQUETTE

How often do you get forwarded of reply e-mail messages in which you have to scroll down past the original or forwarded material to read the actual message? Tony reminded us that when responding to a message is good practice to place your reply at the beginning of the page, not after the copy of the message that came to you.

Those who use MacOS X's Mail as their e-mail application will have no problem doing this, as Mail defaults to placing the reply at the top of the message. Other applications don't necessarily do this, and you may have to set the Preferences accordingly, eg. in Entourage the Reply and Forward preference pane contains an option which needs to be selected:

Also remember to remove attachments sent to you before replying — the sender won't usually want them back!

Thank you Tony for explaining these features.

GARAGE BAND

Tony gave an overview of the Garage Band application — which comes on your Mac as part of the iLife suite of programs. The following summary is reprinted from earlier AMUG Minutes:

Tony demonstrated a few of its features, including its ability to input notes from the on-screen keyboard, or use the computer keyboard for what is termed ‘musical typing’. You can also record music from an external source, such as a connected MIDI keyboard. He also gave a quick look at how MIDI files can be imported and adapted, even if you're not musical! — using MIDI files anyone can take a basic piece of music and:

• change the tempo (speed)
• change each of the instruments
• alter the volume of each separate instrument — even adjust how to what extent you want each track to be played through the left or right speaker of a stero system
• add rhythm patterns to the music
• adjust the volume of each part of individual tracks.

Garage Band can change the instrument voice to a number of present sounds, and the tempo of the music can be chosen. Hundreds of built-in sounds loops can be used for accompaniments, enabling multiple tracks to be played. The volume of each track can be individually controlled, both with a master setting for the track, or using precise settings for each part.

Garage Band is great for precise editing of audio tracks, and is therefore a great tool for producing customised soundtracks. The latest version, Garage Band 3, includes facility for importing a movie from iMovie HD as video track, to which a musical soundtrack can be added. Although this can be done in iMovie at a basic level, Garage Band allows for more advanced handling of the soundtrack files.

Since the above summary was written Garage Band has been upgraded to Version 4.1.2 (Garage Band Ō08), which includes a new major component entitled Magic Garage Band. This enables the user to select one of nine musical instrumental styles (Blues, Rock, Jazz, Country, etc) — Garage Band then plays an arrangement of loops in the selected style, and allows reselection of each of the band's component instruments:

For example, in the Country band depicted above, the Strumming guitar can be replaced by one of the following group of instruments, or removed entirely:

The resulting 'song' can be opened in the main Garage Band window for further editing, and then saved directly to iTunes if desired. You don't have to be a musician to compose in Magic Garage Band — you just have to select instruments until you get an arrangement you like, as the application does all the rest for you! Great fun for all!

An enjoyable application to have a 'fiddle' around with (pardon the pun)! More on Garage Band at another meeting.