2005 MEETINGS AND EVENTS
December 6, 2005 Meeting
A Holiday Gift Guide &
MUG ONE's 20th Anniversary Party!
MUG ONE members and friends celebrated our group's twentieth anniversary on December 6 with presentations on holiday gifts and Mac utilities to make our lives easier. Be sure to check out John Maas' web page of some of his favorite utilities he featured.
Then we enjoyed a tempting array of holiday refreshments brought in by our members, and a special cake. Best of all, generous vendors including Apple, O'Reilly, Peachpit Press and others made sure that every single member in attendance received a door prize. Special thanks go to the Apple Store in Crossgates for the opportunity to purchase several "refreshed" Mac accessories for door prizes. It really helped us to stretch our purchasing dollars.
An
enjoyable time was had
by all. Here's to another
twenty years for MUG ONE – or
more!
November 1, 2005 Meeting
To The Beat Of Your Own Drum:
Garageband – Hear
Different, Compose
Different
Guest presenter Tim Ploss, Instructional Design Technician at SUNY Oneonta's Teaching, Learning and Technology Center, kept the MUG ONE audience enthralled and entertained as he put Apple's Garageband through its paces. With ten years in the recording industry under his belt, Tim showed us how Garageband has the ease of use for beginners, but also packs the power to satisfy much more demanding and experienced users.
Jack Kotz, SUNY Oneonta Distinguished Teaching Professor Emeritus and author of the popular Chemistry and Chemical Reactivity college chemistry textbook, rounded out the evening with a demonstration of innovative uses for the new iPod with video. Jack wowed us by showing PowerPoint presentations from his chemistry course, which he played directly from his docked iPod to the lecture hall's projection system, all controlled by his iPod's tiny remote. Even the embedded videos played beautifully. The possibilities for this new technology, as Jack demonstrated, are staggering. Many thanks to Tim and Jack for a most fascinating evening.
October 4, 2005 Meeting
Adam
Engst – Take
Control of PDF
+ iPhoto
5
Peeved
by PDF? Annoyed by
Acrobat? Adam
Engst,
publisher of TidBITS and
the Take
Control ebook series, showed an enthusiastic audience all we need to know to make the best use of PDFs on our Macs - even if, unlike a Take Control ebook - they're not well-designed for screen reading. Especially valuable for those of us who create PDFs were Adam's tips and tricks for creating the best possible reading experience for users.
Adam rounded out the evening by sharing his favorite tips and tricks from "iPhoto 5 for Mac OS X: Visual QuickStart Guide" (Peachpit Press, 2005). As always, his prestentation was packed-to-the-brim with news, ideas and information. Many, many thanks to Adam for taking the time to share his wisdom and expertise with us.
September 6, 2005 Meeting
Virtual PC 7 and Macworld Expo Boston Wrap-Up
– Sven Anderson, Elsa Travisano, and Brian Foley
At MUG ONE's first meeting of the fall semester Sven Anderson shared his experiences with Microsoft's Virtual PC 7 (including installation frustrations and final success), then Brian Foley demonstrated how easy it is to create a blog by following the instructions Publishing a Blog with Blogger from Peachpit Press.
After Brian dazzled us with his five minute start-to-finish blog creation using Blogger, Elsa Travisano and Brian reported on July's Macworld Expo Boston 2005. Elsa shared an iPhoto slide show of Expo highlights, reported on conference sessions and the Adobe evening event for user group leaders, and demonstrated some of her favorite discoveries from the show including RadTech's screen protectors, sleeves and ProtectorZ (silicon port protectors) for Powerbooks and iBook and DLO's TransPod* iPod car mount/charger/FM transmitter.
Elsa
wrapped up the presentation
with a demo of Apple's
new Mighty
Mouse and
invited attendees
to
try it out during
the
after-meeting socializing.
A steady stream of
MUG ONE members took
her up on her offer
while the rest enjoyed
Terry Helser's home-baked
chocolate chip/peanut
butter cookies. The
highlight of the
raffle
was a copy of Virtual
PC 7, donated by
the
Microsoft Macintosh
Division
and won by a happy
teacher
who will now be able
to use her school's
grading
program at home as
well
as at school.
New Meeting Room, Dates for Fall 2005
We've
moved one door down
in SUNY Oneonta's Hodgdon
IRC Building to Lecture
Hall #2 for
our Fall MUG ONE
meetings. Meetings
are scheduled for
the first Tuesday
of the month:
September
6, October 4, November
1 and December 6.
New York Times columnist and Mac pundit David Pogue with Elsa Travisano and Apple User Group Advisory Board Chair Sandy Foderick at July's Macworld Expo Boston.
Macworld Conference & Expo Boston 2005
Elsa Travisano spent July 11-14 at Macworld Conference & Expo Boston 2005 and
found it a show
of contrasts. Once
so massive that it
overflowed into three
locations and featured
300-400 vendors,
over the past two
years the Boston
Expo has morphed
into a conference-driven
show with a modest
show floor.
About
60 vendors showed
their wares in Hynes,
with products like Harman-Kardon's Drive
+ Play* iPod in-car
system, RadTech's cases,
screen protectors
and accessories
(including the new
OmniCleanz screen
and lens cleaner), Parliant's PhoneValet
Message Center*
and Podcasting bundle, DLO's TransPod*
iPod car mount/charger/FM
transmitter, and
the iGuy from Speck Products (think
Gumby meets iPod
case) attracting
crowds. (*Macworld Best of Show award
winners.) Most of
the big hitters
were absent, though
HP was demonstrating
two new printers
in the Apple Specialists Marketing Co-op booth.
This
was not your father's
Macworld Expo, but
the new iteration
is not necessarily
a bad thing. The
conference tracks
were easily the
rival of the much
larger San Francisco
Macworld Expo held
each January, and
the smaller numbers
of attendees meant
more opportunities
to interact with
the top-notch instructors
and presenters.
Our September 6 MUG ONE meeting will feature more on Macworld Boston from Elsa and Brian Foley, who also attended the show.
June 7, 2005 Meeting
Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0 and Photo Raw Format
Elsa Travisano and Sven Anderson
MUG ONE President and Apple Consultants Network certified Macintosh consultant Elsa Travisano gave a thorough "Cook's Tour" of Photoshop Elements 3.0, demonstrating the new features and capabilities of this amazing and affordable photo editing application.
Then SUNY Oneonta Computer Art department chair and Apple Distinguished Educator Sven Anderson showed us how Photo Raw Format gives previously unimagined control over digital image manipulation
Finally, John Maas and Brian Foley gave a crash course in how to avoid “phishing,” email schemes to collect your personal data.
Special door prizes included a coveted Adobe sweatshirt and copies of Photoshop Elements 3 and Acrobat 7 from Adobe and Photoshop Elements 3 books from O'Reilly, Peachpit, Sybex and Osborne/McGraw-Hill.
The
MUG ONE library got
a heavy workout as
members loaded up
on summer Mac reading,
and many stayed for
refreshments and
conversation despite
the lateness of the
hour. Thanks to all
involved for an especially
informative and enjoyable
meeting.
Apple Senior Engineer David M. Marra wowed us with Tiger on May 3.
May 3, 2005 Meeting
Apple Senior Engineer David M. Marra Unleashes Tiger
An audience of ninety MUG ONE members and guests caught the excitement of Mac OS 10.4 Tiger at the May 3 MUG ONE meeting featuring Apple Senior Engineer David M. Marra.
Dave gave an update on Apple's latest hardware and software releases including iLife '05 and iWork, the Mac mini and the just updated iMacs and eMacs, then wowed the audience with over two hours of demonstrations of the many facets of Tiger. Spotlight, Tiger's phenomenal new searching capability, was a particular crowd pleaser. Brian Foley took photos of the meeting and the dinner beforehand.
Special
door prizes from Apple, BeLight, O'Reilly, Osborne/McGraw-Hill, Take
Control, Peachpit, Sybex and You
Software and
refreshments made
the evening even more
memorable.
Many
thanks to the vendors,
MUG ONE's Board members,
meeting attendees,
and most of all to
Dave Marra for making
this a truly special
meeting.
MUG ONE meetings are free of charge and open to the public. Door prizes (members only!) and refreshments will follow the meeting.
April
5, 2005 Meeting
Viruses,
Backing Up, and Help
Desk Hints
MUG
ONE Program Co-Chair
Jesse Hogue shared
his favorite Mac maintenance
recommendations, back-up
suggestions and help
desk hints with a large
and appreciative audience
at the April 5 MUG
ONE meeting. He also
clued us in on Mac
viruses (there are
none to speak of) and
dealing with spam.
Jesse's excellent handout
from the meeting in
PDF format can be downloaded
by clicking here.
Many
thanks to Jesse for
an excellent presentation!
(This
meeting was originally
slated for March, but
was rescheduled due
to snow.)
February
1, 2005 Meeting
Macworld
Expo SF 2005,
Tasty Tech Tidbits
At
February's well-attended
MUG ONE meeting, Elsa
Travisano brought us
up to date on January's
Macworld Conference & Expo
San Francisco with
an iPhoto slide show
and commentary on the
hardware, software
and user group events
that made this Macworld
memorable.
John
Maas, Brian Foley and
Sven Anderson then
served up a smorgasbord
of tech tips and tidbits.
Sven introduced us
to the software available
at www.apple.com/downloads/macosx,
John gave us a tour
of Contextual Menus,
and Brian demoed Grab
and other screenshot
utilities.
Jesse
Hogue was scheduled
to show some of his
favorite maintenance
utilities but was thwarted
by the lack of an iBook
video cable (his was
lost and MUG ONE didn't
have one to loan, a
problem since remedied).
Jesse promised to include
the missing demo in
his March presentation.
Door
prizes, refreshments
and cheerful networking
rounded out the evening.
(Elsa answered so many
tech questions that
she was practically
hoarse.) Thanks to
all the presenters
and participants for
making this meeting
a memorable one.
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