Muskoka Mac User Group

If I recall correctly a couple of meetings back someone asked about combining PDF files.

Here’s a simple, free little application that does a great job for most situations. It lets you combine pdf files and pictures by drag and drop, then resort, rotate and delete unwanted pages. You can even update the title and authour information before you put out the new file. Worth downloading if you’ve ever wanted to do anything like this at all….

If you just want a quick sub section of a larger pdf (or any other kind of file) as a pdf, you can use the built in Preview application. Just choose ‘Print’, pick the pages you want, then hit the PDF drop down menu in the bottom right corner of that window and choose ‘Save as PDF’

If you have more elaborate needs, there’s a nifty command line tool called pdftk that will do a lot more, but using it can be a bit painful Talk to me about it if you think you need it.

PDF files are really good for sharing ‘read only’ information with people – Everybody has a PDF reading application regardless of the computing device they are using, and they retain as much quality as you put in, so they print great too.

Hope somebody finds this useful.

Happy New Year!

I recently installed Leopard (OS X 10.5) in my several-years-old Mac G5, but not without a few difficulties,
mostly related to available memory:

1. It seems that Leopard requires half a gig of memory. While I installed one gig,
   but that does not seem to be enough, and have ordered more.
2. I purchased the required external hard drive, which is an essential.
3. With my native talent, I managed to erase ALL of my iPhoto Library,
   some 6,133 pictures. Gulp!!!
4. However, the most important built-in feature of Leopard called Time Machine rescued me.
   It restored all of my pictures (although none of the albums, which can be recreated.) at the touch of
   the restore button.

Take my advice:

1. For the marginal difference in cost, purchase a new iMac
   with Leopard and iLife 08 already installed, rather than try to upgrade.
2. Don’t do without Time Machine, it will save your life.

Bill

With software like this – who needs viruses?

If you run QuickBooks, make darned sure you do a backup before you run their latest update.

Note that Apple has also released a big bunch of security patches in their latest Security Update both for Tiger and Leopard. Run Software Update lately?

Thanks again to O’Reilly Media. Their contribution to our December meeting arrived in my mailbox yesterday – the ever popular Missing Manual book from David Pogue – updated for Leopard! I’ve contacted the lucky winner and advised him where to collect the spoils.

As long as I’ve giving them this free plug – I noticed today they released The Book Of PF which should be helpful for those of you geeky enough to want to fix Apple’s issues with their new firewall in Leopard on their own.

Update

For those falling in between the all out geeks and the ‘what is a firewall’ crowd – These applications look really interesting, although I have not yet tried them. Waterroof is a GUI interface for OSX for that pf firewall with advanced features, and Noobproof is a bare bones simple and easy GUI by the same people. Somebody try these out and tell me what you think!

If you missed it – you really missed out! I captured all the audio, and I’m hoping to put it all together in a quick and dirty podcast, but I’m sure it’s not going to capture the feel of the whole event. Turnout was awesome, and I’m sure everyone had fun!

A big thanks to Meg, Craig, Brian Harvey and the rest of the volunteers for putting together such a great meeting.

A really big thanks to Terry Sebastian ( shameless plug – www.terrysebastian.com ) for his presentation – 30 Days Africa. You can view a multimedia version of the presentation at his site or buy the book.

Thanks too to Scott Pelling for the Garage Band teaser – I can’t wait for the January meeting to get the whole presentation.

At the risk of sounding like an Academy Awards receipient, I’ve got to put in a plug here for both Peachpit Press and O’Reilly Media for generously donating door prizes.

Peachpit gave away a great looking copy of thier Visual Quickstart Guide to Leopard and the nifty video training book Adobe Photoshop CS3 for Photographers. Hopefully our winners will either provide us with a great review of their spoils or at least share the wealth

The ever-helpful Marsee from O’Reilly Media donated some wares as well, but it looks like the US postal service has let her down, or the bomb-sniffing dogs at Customs want to get their paws on our door prizes too. We drew a winner, and once we have a prize we’ll pass it along.

Be sure to share your comments on this fun evening below – if you haven’t registered before just give me 24 hours or so after you apply to get you approved – and come on out for our January Meeting. I’ll have a post up with all the details soon!

Further to my earlier comments about printers:

I suddenly started getting intermittent stoppages on my Brother 1440 laser printer, with the notice:

printer currently off line

The only way I could get going was to shut off the printer and letting it
cool down for 15 seconds. It would start printing again, until the next time . . . .

I hunted for a solution on the Brother web site. Nothing.

Brother technical support staff told me by phone that, when using a USB connection, I should
go directly into the computer rather than through a hub (as was my case).

Since then, it has worked smoothly.