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Snippets from Previous Meetings

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QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Several computing queries and suggested solutions included:

UNWANTED DASHBOARD

How do I stop Dashboard from appearing every time I use the mouse? It's most annoying !

• If this is happening, you must have a fairly new computer which is equipped with a Mighty Mouse, and it's likely that Button 4 (the semi-circular panels on each side, which you probably thought were finger-grips !) are set to open Dashboard when they're pressed — this may be the default setting.
• To turn off this setting go to System Preferences/Keyboard & Mouse panel, click on Button 4 and choose another option (or turn it off):
• The Mighty Mouse isn't just for clicking and dragging, like the original single-button Apple mouse — it can also be used to display shorcut menus, to scroll or zoom, and to open a variety of tools (Exposé, Dashboard, Spotlight, Application Switcher) or an application of your choosing. To learn more about using a Mighty Mouse, in Finder click on the Help Menu and search for mighty mouse.

STRANGE LAPTOP KEYBOARD BEHAVIOUR

Why is my laptop's keyboard behaving strangely?

• It's possible that the Numbers Lock key (F6)) is on — it shows a green light if it's active. This key changes the behaviour of the keyboard by activating Mouse Keys, which enable the number keys to perform various mouse functions such as pointing and clicking. Mouse Keys is an option for users who might have difficulty using a conventional mouse. For details go to System Preferences/Universal Access/Mouse.

SESSIONS

MacBASICS ~ KEYBOARD VIEWER

If you want to type non-standard characters, there are several ways you can access them. Holding down the Option key while you type makes a variety of characters/symbols available, eg © £ ÷ ® ™, and holding down Shift+Option gives more, including♥ € √ º (for degrees)

Some of the available characters vary with the font. You can see all the available characters by turning on the Keyboard Viewer: because many of the special characters (such as accent marks) are associated with different languages, the Keyboard Viewer is found in System Preferences/International (not in Keyboard/Mouse, as you might expect).

Go to: System Preferences/International/Input Menu, and click ON by Keyboard Viewer:

At the bottom of the window, click in front of Show Input Menu:

This will made the International Menu (small flag) show in your menu bar at the top of the screen, and when you click on it you'll see the drop-down Input Menu, eg:

When you click on Show Keyboard Viewer, the keyboard window appears, and by pressing keys and key combinations on your actual keyboard, you can see the characters which are available on in font. Not all fonts have the same variety of characters built into them.

NOTE: Although you may choose to set your International menu to ‘New Zealand’, be aware that some software (eg FileMaker ) responds only to several prescribed formats (eg USA, UK, Australian), so Australia may be the preferred option (like it or not!).

CHARACTER PALETTE

Tony gave an explanation if the Character Palette:

Character Palette is used to insert special characters, such as mathematical symbols, letters with accent marks, or arrows and other ‘dingbats’, into your documents, and also characters from other languages. You can access the Character Palette in two ways:

• From the Input menu: the Input menu looks like a flag in the top-right corner of your menu bar. [If you don't see the Input menu in the menu bar, open System Preferences and click International. Click Input Menu, then click the checkboxes next to Character Palette and ‘Show Input menu in menu bar.’]
• If an application is specifically designed to work with Mac OS X, you can choose Edit > Special Characters to open the Character Palette.

Having located the special character that you want, there are several ways you can insert it into your document:

• Double-click on the character, and it will be placed at the insert point in the document.
• Select the character, then click the Insert button.
• Drag the character from the Palette to the document.

Sometimes Character Palette doesn't work, and when you try to use its character or symbols nothing happens. This is because it is designed to work with newer Unicode applications, which unfortunately excludes AppleWorks, (which was last updated some years ago), but includes Pages, Text Edit and Word 2004 (it may work on Word X). Although until recently new Macs came with both Character Palette and AppleWorks installed, this is a case where two Apple applications do not work with each other, due to the newer design of one having overtaken the other!

Thank you Tony for this Basics session.

IPOD RANGE

Sheryl gave an overview of the current range of iPods — these started as music players, but some of which are now also capable of displaying photos/video, and of wirelessly giving access to the Internet, which enables both browsing and downloading directly from the iTunes Music Store.

The new iPod Nanos come in a range of colours, have a curved aluminium-and-glass body, and contain a new feature called Genius which creates playlists (see session below). An built-in accelerometer enables the user to turn the iPod sideways to maximise videos on the screen, and to shuffle your music you give the iPod a shake!

For further details, prices and ‘guided tours’ visit: http://www.apple.com/nz/itunes/

Thank you Sheryl for presenting the details about these products. NB. The main Apple website uses the spellings ‘colors’ and ‘aluminum’- Apple NZ uses ‘colours’ and ‘aluminium’

DATA RECORDER

Hugh and Logan explained and demonstrated the Olympus Data Recorder, a device smaller than an iPod which digitally records audio data — virtually a USB drive with controls. Separate audio files are recorded on a

Thank you Hugh and Logan for the information on these devices.

NUMBERS

Logan gave an introduction to the Numbers application: this is the spreadsheet component of Apple's iWork suite, and is the replacement for the AppleWorks Spreadsheet.

Numbers is able to import spreadsheet files from Microsoft's Excel, and can export them in Excel format, if necessary.

When opening Numbers the user is presented with a choice of pre-designed templates which may be used if desired: these include layouts such as checklists, invoices, planners and budgets:

Numbers worksheets are presented as separate tables (unlike Excel files, each of which contains a single large spreadsheet), which may be in multiple formats: spreadsheets, summaries, graphs, charts, etc, within the same worksheet. Image files may be included — these can be dragged directly from the Media window: being an Apple application it links directly to your iPhoto and iTunes libraries. You also have access to your Font Book for formatting purposes:

The Numbers Menu Bar is similar to those of the other iWork applications (Pages and Keynote), and is fully customizable: go to the View Menu, select Customize Toolbar, then drag the icons for desires functions to your toolbar.

Also in common with Pages(Keynote, many of the controlling/formatting aspects of Numbers are controlled through the Inspector, a multipane window with tabs to select options for documents, sheets, tables, cells, charts (graphs), cells, text, graphics, metrics (measurements(, hyperlinks and QuickTime:

Numbers Help takes you to useful on-line video tutorials; these can also http://www.apple.com/iwork/tutorials/#numbers

Thank you Logan for describing this useful application.

KEYNOTE

Tony presented an overview of the Keynote application, and demonstrated some of its features. Keynote is a presentation program which displays information in a series of slides, but this basic format now has a number of ‘bells and whistles’ which lift a simple presentation to an increasingly sophisticated level. Some features of Keynote's latest version (now up to v4.0.3 in Keynote ‘08) include:

Like Numbers, Keynote offers a selection of ready-made templates (called ‘themes’) which contain font styles and background designs. Each theme contains a series of Master slides (title, blank, photo-frame, etc) which may be used in the presentation.

Also like Numbers (and Pages) many of the formatting functions are controlled through the Inspector window, in which tabs give access to:

• Document Inspector: control of slideshow settings, soundtrack, recording and Spotlight entries.
• Slide Inspector: control of transition, appearance and backgrounds of slides.
• Build Inspector: control of builds in and out, and of slide actions.
• Text Inspector: control of colour, alignment, spacing and margins.
• Graphic Inspector: control of fill, stroke (lines and frames), shadow, reflection, opacity.
• Metrics Inspector: control of size, position and rotation.
• Tables Inspector: control of rows, columns, cells.
• Chart Inspector: control of elements of charts and graphs.
• Hyperlink and QuickTime Inspectors.

Tony demonstrated how many of Keynotes new features worked, and showed how they can be incorporated into slideshow presentations, complete with timed audio recordings. More on Keynote at next meeting, including how to attach dynamic label to slides in slideshows.

Thank you Tony for demonstrating this application.

ITUNES —GENIUS

Sheryl briefly described a new optional feature in iTunes 8 entitled Genius. When you first load this new version you are presented with a prompt screen:

iTunes sends information from your computer to the iTunes Store about the songs contained in your playlists, and matches them with lists of similar songs which are available on its lists. Mary has further information on Genius which she will present at the next meeting.

Thank you Mary and Sheryl for the information on this feature.