Muskoka Mac User Group

Hi Everybody
The Muskoka Mac User Group calendar is now available for everybody. For those of you using OS X and iCal, just click here or open iCal, choose ‘Calendar -> Subscribe’ and type webcal://www.muskokamug.org/ical/MMUG.ics in the address field. I’d also suggest telling it to refresh daily and don’t click the box that says remove alarms. Then your Mac will remind you about the next meeting!
If you don’t use iCal as your scheduling program, mention at the next meeting what you do use and we’ll figure out how to hook you up.
If you don’t use any calendaring software, I will have a webpage up shortly that gives you an online version you can visit with your browser.
As a service to our members, if you have a calendar you’d like to publish for others to access, we can do that. The link can be confidential and password protected if the calendar you are sharing is personal information and not for the general public.
There’s lots of other calendars out there you can subscribe to – for more information check out Apple’s iCal page or iCalShare.com especially their FAQ

Take a look at this ‘Wired’ magazine article and the related article here. Remember those games you had as a kid where you moved a ball around in a box by tilting the box? Try surfing the net the same way….

We’re in the midst of a constant whirlwind at macs@work these days. Something has definitely happened within the general public consciousness and I am experiencing a very tangible increase of interest in the Mac platform. I’ve been very busy and confess that I haven’t visited this site in a little while. I was delighted therefore to discover so much activity and so many interesting and useful posts. This Communal Blog idea is working very well. The site is also looking great thanks to the efforts of Brian McKee and Rod Martin. We’ve got that distinctive Muskoka ambiance back again. I know I speak for everyone when I say “Thanks guys! You’re the best!”
I must say it is always great to be able to tell new users that there is a Mac User Group in Muskoka. Their eyes always light up and I am quite sure that we will some new members in the very near future. I also keep hearing appreciative comments from folks that are silent participants in the muskokamug mail list–following the conversations and learning as they go. This is all great stuff and I’m proud to be a part of it.

While I doubt most of you care – there is a long outstanding bug in Panther that prevents you installing some Perl based libraries. If you don’t do Perl development work you can safely ignore this… If you do the ‘definite’ answer is here. Rumour has it they didn’t fix it in Tiger either.

I must say I’m enjoying Panther more than I thought I would. Lots of nice little touches that weren’t in Jaguar.

I had the same problems this guy had. There weren’t any podcast software programs for Jaguar. But he found a solution. Take a look if it’s been an issue for you.

If you’re on broadband you may find this chat software useful. Those of us still on dialup can still use it but it’s slower!

It’s called Skype (www.skype.com). Although iChat is really good Skype does have a few advantages. First of all, it’s free! Secondly, this software work on Mac, Windows (including Pocket PC) and Linux platforms. You you can do both voice and text chats. On dialup I find that voice chats are better on iChat but if you’re on broadband I don’t think there will be any difference.

Skype is useful because many people still use PCs and communicating with iChat requires them to have an AIM account which few people have.

Thanks to Rod we have an updated theme – boy we ship the guy off to another country and he’s still helping out. Thanks Rod!
I’m reversing my earlier executive decision – anyone who registers and I then approve (the current list is Meg, Rod, Daniel, Bill, Alan, Jamie , Rob and me) will be able to publish their comments directly without my intervention. Anything else is too big a pain in the neck So, go for it!
Make sure you read Bill’s latest posts below too – good info there.

Here’s a fun thing, for when you have more time on your hands than you know what to do with:

In OS X, open several applications/documents onto your desk top.
Push “shift” and “F9” at the same time and watch everything go for slow waltz.

Fun.

I suggest you not burn a CD of pictures from iPhoto and take it to a photo store to have pictures processed. They do not like the way iPhoto organizes the folders onto the CD and haved to do a lot of work to winkle out the pictures you want. At the samed timed, the normal iPhoto burn does not make a friendly CD for a Windows machine.

Apple knows all of this and has a simple solution, but they don’t tell you easily. Under iPhoto Help, you will find the following, which will assist:

Creating a CD or DVD to be viewed in Windows or by a photo processing company

You can use iPhoto’s burn feature to archive your photos and albums for viewing in iPhoto only. If you want to create a disc to be viewed on a Windows computer or by a photo processing company, you must use the Finder.

1. In iPhoto, select the album or albums you want to burn to disc.

2. Choose File > Export.

3. Click File Export at the top of the Export Photos window.

4. In the File Export pane, change the desired options:

Format: Choose a file format for your exported images from the Format pop-up menu. (Depending on the source of the images, you may want to choose JPG to ensure compatibility.)

Size: If necessary, scale images to a specific size by specifying a maximum width and height.

Name: Choose whether to export photos with their filenames, iPhoto titles, or album name. Be sure to select the “Use extension” checkbox to add the file format extensions (such as “.jpg” or “.tiff”) to the end of the photos’ filenames, titles, or album names.

5. Click Export.

6. Choose a location for the photos you are exporting, then click OK.

7. When the export is finished, quit iPhoto.

8. Click the Finder icon in the Dock and insert a CD-RW disc or a blank CD-R or DVD-R disc into your drive.

9. Drag the folder onto the disc’s icon.

10. When the files have finished copying, choose File > Burn Disc, and then click Burn.

Hi All
I found a review of Apples new Pages program that seems quite good. Since I have now have a copy of my own I can demo it to anybody that is interested…. once I have a computer again.