Muskoka Mac User Group

[This topic on Mac OSX hints got me thinking](http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20060120170310468&query=ipod+serial+number). Do you have your iPod serial number written down anywhere? The Apple website has a nice concise set of instructions on [how to get your iPod serial number](http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=60978) either from the iPod itself, or out of iTunes. The OSX hints site also mentions the .plist file where it keeps the last couple of serial numbers it’s seen.

Ya know, I thought Apple’s performance claims for their new machines sounded, um, enthusiastic….

[Mac World has some inital test results](http://www.macworld.com/2006/01/features/imaclabtest1/index.php) of ‘real world’ uses that’s much more in line with what I would have expected. Applications rewritten to run on an Intel Mac run 25% faster than the same application ran on a PowerPC Mac. Applications running using the ‘Rosetta’ translation technology run half as fast as a PowerPC Mac.

People buying a new Intel Mac need to keep that in mind if they want to run processor intensive applications like Photoshop that haven’t yet been rewritten. If you are upgrading from an older Mac it will still likely seem faster, but if you have a pretty new Mac already, performance will actually be worse than what you are used to until that software is redone.

Check out the article for a realistic view of what to expect.

For any of you that use [Gmail](http://gmail.google.com) and don’t use POP access to put it in your regular mail client – [here's a great addition](http://toolbar.google.com/gmail-helper/index?promo=gdl-en).
Using the Gmail Notifier I can see mail as it comes in to my personal mail account while I’m at work, without downloading all the mail to my work computer.

Quick a quick post for those of you using Microsoft Remote Desktop with your Mac. Here’s a cute trick. To connect to more than one PC at a time – duplicate the Remote Desktop Application. Then you can click on the copy and use it at the same time as the original. In limited testing here it’s working fine – and a real time saver.

Those of you that were at the last meeting might remember my plug for the [Mr Excel podcast](http://feeds.feedburner.com/LearnExcelFromMrexcelPodcast).
I’ve been watching a few of them and it’s neat the little things you don’t know.
For instance, at the meeting one of our presenters showed us the ‘Edit->Fill->Down’ menu option.
I mentioned you could drag on the bottom right corner (they call that the ‘handle’) down as far as you like.
The podcast showed me that if you double click the ‘handle’ it automatically fills down to the same height as the adjoining columns. Try it – it’s a time saver!
The other little tidbit was this – select an area, start typing in the first cell, then hit Control-Enter. Voila – instant area fill.
Hope somebody finds this useful.
Brian

For anyone nervous about updating to 10.4.4 – I have it and everything went well for me. There is some word out there that indicates if you’re running OS X server with MySql you may lose your connection to it – but I did not experience that issue on my powerbook (see Apple article on OS X Server here)

From Apple:
The 10.4.4 Update delivers overall improved reliability and compatibility for Mac OS X v10.4 and is recommended for all users.

It includes fixes for:
- SMB/CIFS and NFS network file services
- Bluetooth wireless access
- Core Graphics, Core Audio, Core Image, RAW camera support, including updated ATI and NVIDIA graphics drivers
- Spotlight indexing and searching
- AppleScript, iChat, DVD Player, and Safari applications
- Dashboard widgets: Calendar and Stocks
- Software Update and Sync Services
- compatibility with USB and FireWire devices and third party applications
- previous standalone security updates

there you have it

Rod

I have long been frustrated about windows media player on the mac. It hasn’t been updated since 2003 and Microsoft has officially announced they have halted development for the Mac (see CNET article here).

The great news is that they have released Flip4Mac – free software that allows WMV’s to be played in Quicktime. (It works) – get Flip4Mac here.

Whew – finally.

As an Apple group we mention the [Apple iTunes store](www.itunes.ca) a lot – but there are other choices.
I’m a big fan of [www.magnatune.com](http://magnatune.com). They’ve got [a different spin](http://magnatune.com/info/press/coverage/) on the whole ‘record label’ concept summarized neatly by their logo –

We are not evil!

If you are looking for background music for your podcast or presentations, they have generous terms clearly spelled out on their website.
It’s a neat concept – if you like the idea of supporting artists more directly, or hearing music that isn’t typical Top 40, check them out.

Happy New Year everyone!
First meeting of the year:
When? Tuesday, January 3, 7:30 p.m.
Where? macs@work, The Digital Life Centre
What to bring? A folding chair
What’s happening? Don McCormick is going to show us how he uses Excel. Of course there are always the little/big issues that people bring to spice up the evening. See you there.