Aoraki Macintosh User Group Home Page

Snippets from Previous Meetings

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QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Several computing queries and suggested solutions included:

SAVING KOREAN TEXT

When I try to save text from a Korean website it changes, and if I send it to someone else they canÕt receive it properly. Why?

• When you copy text from the screen (in English, Korean or any other language) your computer needs to know how to handle the characters of that language. Most Macs can handle characters from many languages, including Korean: (if you can't see Korean characters here, your Mac can't!) but if you send Korean Text to a PC user there's no guarantee that their computer will handle the characters correctly.
• The safest way to copy and send from a website is probably to take a screenshot of the text — this takes a picture of whatever you see on the screen (text, pictures, graphics) and saves it as a JPEG image file.
• To take a screenshot you can use the Grab application which is on your Mac, but a quicker method is to hold down Shift and Command (the Apple key), then press 4. The cursor turns into ‘crosshairs’ — drag over the section you want, then as you let the mouse button go the picture is taken and put on your desktop.
  You can then drag it into a document or e-mail message. This image should appear OK:
• Quicker still, hold down the Control key as well as Shift and Command while you press 4, and the resulting image will be placed on the Clipboard instead of the Desktop, and you can paste it straight into a document using Command-V.

VIRUS PROTECTION

What virus-protection applications are available for Macs?

• As yet, Macs don't need anti-virus software to protect their operating system, but there are several reasons why some users employ virus-protection applications: you may receive e-mails or downloads which are infected with viruses and (although they won't affect your Mac) you could unknowingly pass them on to PC users; and those with Intel Macs which also have Windows installed certainly need anti-virus software.
• Two available applications are ClamXav (freeware) and Sophos AntiVirus (shareware, but can be used once without purchase). Visit their websites for further information: http://www.clamxav.com/ and http://www.sophos.com

UNKNOWN ADMIN PASSWORD

I've forgotten (or never knew) the Administrator's password for my computer, so I can't install anything or make System changes. Help!

• You can't find out or retrieve the existing password, so you need to give yourself a new one. To do this you must restart your computer from the System CD (which should have come with your computer — if you haven't got it, contact Sheryl, who probably has one!) by inserting the disk and holding down the C key while restarting. Click past the Languages, but DON'T click when the Install button show (as you'll reinstall the Operating System) — instead go to the Utilities Menu and select Reset Password.

PAGES DEFAULT TEMPLATE

How do I get my Pages application to default to the font and page layout that I want, instead of Helvetica font and the other presets?

• At the meeting we couldn't offer a solution, but a post-meeting investigation enabled this to be done. Here's how:

Create a document with your chosen formatting (font /size /margins, etc), save it as a Template, then tell Pages to use that template for new documents.
Steps to follow:

1. Format your document the way you want it to appear.
2. Go to File/Save as Template. Give the your Template a name, then click Save: it will be saved deep in your Users folder: Library/Application Support/iWork/Pages/Templates/My Templates, but it will also appear in the Template Chooser.
3. In your Pages Preferences/General, under For New Documents, select Use Template and click the Choose button.

This will take you to the Template Chooser, where you can select your template to appear as the default for every new document.

Thank you to those who contributed solutions in this session.

SESSIONS

INTERNET ACTIVITIES

Mary shared several of the online uses that she makes of websites:

Facebook is widely known as a social networking website in which contributors share their thoughts, experiences and personal information. Mary uses this site to connect to word-game applications such as Scrabulus and Wordscraper, which may be played online with other aficionados.

Mary mentioned NetNewsWire (which may be downloaded from the Apple website). It's described as:

Looking for an easy-to-use RSS and Atom reader for your Mac? You've found it! The Eddy-award-winning NetNewsWire has a familiar three-paned interface and can fetch and display news from thousands of different websites and weblogs.

Mary often uses ScreenCasts Online (which she demonstrated at the April AMUG meeting): this is a website offering free video tutorials to help you ‘get the most out of your Mac’. A new tutorial is published every week, covering such topics as OS X, aspects for those who are switching from Windows and/or are new to Macs, latest applications, etc.

You can view some of the available tutorials just by visiting their website: http://www.screencastsonline.com/sco/index.php

IPOD TOUCH

Mary showed her iPod Touch — no longer of course just a music player, but also a games machine, video and photo viewer, and highly-portable Internet connection device. Mary described how she uses it to access the Web and e-mail while travelling, and for utilities such as weather and maps. It uses Safari for web-browsing, and synchronises with iCal and Address Book. Very handy when travelling!

Thank you Mary for the above sessions — always something of interest!

ACTIVITY MONITOR

Hugh described the Activity Monitor utility. This is a small application which you'll find in your computer's Utilities folder (which is located in the main application folder) which gives you information about what is running on your computer — even when there's not much visible activity, your computer is usually performing a number of ‘hidden’ tasks. From the Help menu:

You can monitor the activity of your computer's processor, hard disk, memory, and network activity with the Activity Monitor utility.

Activity Monitor displays aspects of your system's performance in graphs and numbers. For example, if you use applications that draw heavily on your computer's processor like graphics, digital video editing, and rendering applications, Activity monitor can display the amount of processor usage in a graph while you run your applications.

If you want to closely monitor your computer's activity, Activity Monitor can display a dynamic graph in the Dock icon.

As long as Activity Monitor is open, youÕll see the activity displayed in the Dock. The activity will be displayed in the Dock until you quit Activity Monitor.

Hugh pointed out that Activity Monitor has a Quit Process button — this can be used to Quit (or Force Quit) an application which is running, if necessary.

[ Remember that you can also force applications to quit by pressing Option+Command+Escape and selecting the application ]

Thank you Hugh for explaining this utility.

KEYNOTE

Tony gave a session which continued from the presentation he made at the September meeting — further aspects of using Keynote were explained, including using it for putting labels on images, and for presenting high-quality customised slideshows which may be saved as QuickTime movies:

LABELLING IMAGES

When presenting a slideshow of images, labels can be made to appear on the pictures (either automatically on timed cue, or on mouse-click) by using the Build Inspector, which allows objects (in this case, the text labe!) to appear, disappear or move is a variety of ways. This means that when a slide is being presented in a show, labels can appear when required, so that multiple features can be pointed out if desired.

HQ QUICKTIME SLIDESHOWS

Dropping a group of images into the Slides panel in Keynote causes it to incorporate the images into a series of slides, which can then be exported as a full-quality QuickTime slideshow — as the slide format is fully customizable this means that full quality is retained (unlike when exporting to QuickTime from iPhoto, where the largest movie size available is 640x480 pixels).

Other formats to which Keynote presentations may be exported are:

Thank you Tony for explaining these further capabilities of Keynote.

E-MAIL COURTESY

Hugh reminded members of several points which are helpful to keep in mind when using e-mail:

BLIND CARBON COPIES

When you're sending the same message to a number of recipients, you may want to enter their the addresses in the Bcc (Blind Carbon Copy) panel message, instead of the To or Cc (Carbon Copy) panels. Doing this sends the message to multiple recipients (as does Cc), but each recipient sees only his/her own address when the message is received:

If you use Mail as your e-mail application, you may find that the Bcc panel does not appear, as by default it is hidden. To make it appear, click on the symbol at the left of the message panel, and check the Bcc Address Field line, and this toggles the Bcc to remain on in this and subsequent messages.

REMOVING QUOTING & HEADERS

Messages which have been forwarded on to you may contain quoting markers, and look like this:

• > This message has been forwarded and
• > the markers at the start of each line
• > indicate that it is at the first level of quoting.

If you're forwarding such a message, it's good practice to remove the quoting markers before sending it on. Do this is Mail by selecting the appropriate lines in Mail Preferences/Composing/Responding, or in Entourage under the Edit menu: Auto Text Cleanup/Remover Quoting.

It's also good form to remove unnecessary e-mail headers which can clutter up messages.

Thank you Hugh for this session.

SOFTWARE

Sheryl brought members‘ attention to the Downloads page on the Apple website, which contains available downloads of dozens of applications of various types. Versions may may be freeware, shareware or demo (work with limited features, or work for a limited period — full features/unlimited use available on payment).

Some of the freeware applications, and their descriptions:

FUN CARD MAKER

Use the free Fun Card Maker to create personal virtual cards from your own photos and images on your computer, add a brief message and then hit Send. Fun Card Maker creates the e-mail ready for you to address it and send it off.

KIDZUI

Expand your kids online experience with KidZui, the Internet for Kids. KidZui is a FREE graphical web browser designed just for kids with access to over 800,000 kid-friendly websites, pictures, and videos. Real parents and teachers review content for KidZui so your kids can surf independently. Kids build avatars to express themselves online. They earn points for exploration and discovery. They can tag content and share it with parent-approved friends.

Parents receive weekly emails and online reports to keep them in touch with their kids‘ online activities. Running KidZui in protected mode blocks access to all other applications and content on a computer to anyone who doesn't have the parent password. Once a computer is secured, it will automatically re-launch back into protected mode even if it is restarted or the power is cycled. This is a great way to let your kids independently explore on KidZui without worrying about them using the adult Internet, or accidentally deleting important files.

Thank you Sheryl for sharing the applications in this session.