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2006 MEETINGS AND EVENTS
December 6, 2006 Meeting
Annual Holiday Meeting and Party
On Wednesday, December 6 MUG ONE held our annual Holiday Meeting and Party.
Our evening of software demonstrations began with Tom Travisano showing us Nova Development's Parallels Desktop (for running Windows on an Intel Mac). Then Elsa Travisano demoed Nova's Print Explosion Deluxe and iRemember scrapbooking software from Intriguing Development. Special vendor discounts for all three software applications were distributed at the meeting. The evening of demos wrapped up with Brian Foley's show and tell about the delightful Jacquie Lawson web greeting card site.
Afterwards came a generous array of door prizes, including a special $1 a chance holiday raffle for a black 2GB iPod nano, won by new MUG ONE member Walter Wagor. Congratulations, Walter! Finally we shared delicious goodies brought in by MUG ONE members and enjoyed the good cheer of the season with our MUG ONE friends.
2006-2007 MUG ONE Officers Elected
The November 1, 2006 MUG ONE meeting began with election of officers for the upcoming year. Members voted for a slate that included the posts of president, vice president, secretary and treasurer; program co-chair and librarian are appointed positions.
MUG ONE's officers for 2006-2007
Elsa Travisano, President
John Maas, Vice President
Terry Helser, Secretary
Joanne Johnston, Treasurer
John Maas, Program Co-Chair
Brian Foley, Program Co-Chair
Sven Anderson, Program Co-Chair
Johanna Koenig, Librarian
Congratulations, new and returning officers! Thank you for your willingness to serve.
November 1 Meeting
Adam Engst on "Buying a Mac"
On November 1, 2006, Adam C. Engst, publisher of TidBITS and the Take Control ebook series, treated MUG ONE members and guests who traveled from as far as Utica and Binghamton to a dynamic and highly informative presentation on buying a Mac. A highlight of the evening came when Adam distributed CDs to the audience. Each autographed CD contained Take Control book samples and a link for a limited time 50% discount – except one. That CD was loaded with full copies of every Take Control ebook. What a prize, and surprise, for the lucky winner!
Adam's program description: "Now, you all understand the basics of walking into a store, picking out a box, paying for it, and going home. But Adam will be focusing on the weeks and months before your purchase, when you're trying to figure out when you should buy your new Mac and which Mac you should buy. For some people these decisions are obvious, but for many others the decision to buy in July versus January, or to buy an iMac over a Mac mini, or a MacBook instead of a MacBook Pro, is nearly paralyzing, since there are so many possibilities.
Aside from purchasing numerous Macs over the years and watching Apple closely since 1990, Adam has compiled all his knowledge about the topic into "Take Control of Buying a Mac," an updated version of which (with details about the new Intel-based Macs) should be out by the meeting."
Adam is an internationally known Mac pundit who was recently ranked third in the industry's MDJ Power 25, and ranked in the MacTec 25. His presentations are always informative and entertaining, with something for Mac users at all levels.
We rounded out the meeting with questions and answers, refreshments and door prizes from Peachpit Press and the Apple Store. We also distributed catalogs from Peachpit Press, and subscription flyers for O'Reilly's new magazine, Craft. MUG ONE library materials were available for circulation to MUG ONE members at the meeting.
Many, many thanks to Adam and to everyone who attended for making this such a valuable and memorable meeting!
October 4 Meeting
"Tips, Tricks and Timely Topics"
MUG ONE members and guests met on October 4, 2006 for a variety-filled meeting that featured a presentation by Brian Foley on internet commerce (now we know the ins and outs of PayPal, click-throughs and more), John Maas's demonstrations of Skype (software for making free calls over the internet), file compression software and AppZapper, a utility that scours your computer for all of an application's installed components and allows you to remove some or all, and Elsa Travisano's show-and-tell on TintBook color charts for printing.
Members and guests were reminded that elections for officers will be held at the November 1 meeting, and that all memberships are due for renewal in October.
Once again the lights went out in the Human Ecology lecture hall at 9:15 p.m (is this what is meant by a "smart" classroom?), just as we were wrapping up the raffle and sharing refreshments and conversation. Fortunately president Elsa Travisano knew the location of the building's lighting override switches so the problem was promptly remedied.
September 6 Meeting - note new location
Peachpit Press Meeting-in-a-Box: Macworld Expo 2006
MUG ONE members and guests gathered on September 6 in our new meeting room for the fall term, Human Ecology 132 on the SUNY Oneonta campus. Following a fascinating and wide-ranging question and answer session, program co-chair John Maas demonstrated MUG ONE's new message forum. The forum is currently being tested by MUG ONE's board members and is slated to be made available to everyone who joins or renews membership for 2006-7. October 30 marks the beginning of our new membership year, so now is the time to join or renew.
President Elsa Travisano gave an overview of the latest Apple announcements - new 17", 20" and 24" iMacs - and talked about the newest Take Control ebooks, then screened the first part of Peachpit Press's Macworld Expo 2006 Meeting in a Box video. Afterwards we enjoyed door prizes from Peachpit Press and sampled refreshments, including Terry Helser's famous chocolate mint cookies. Were we surprised when all the lights in the lecture hall suddenly went out shortly after 9 p.m.! Turns out that the building lights are on an automatic energy-saving shutdown. With the custodian's help we found the override switch and illumination was restored. We plan to have that glitch sorted out, as well as problems with the projection system (thank goodness for the Epson projector that Elsa Travisano won for MUG ONE from the Microsoft Business Unit) in time for October's meeting.
Wednesday,
May 3 Meeting
Apple
Senior Engineer Dave
Marra
Apple
Senior Systems Engineer Dave
Marra treated
us to a rousing and
extremely well received
overview of Apple's
latest hardware and
software at MUG ONE's
May meeting. This was
Dave's fifth presentation
for MUG ONE, and we
hope there will be many
more to come! Members
and visitors came from
as far as Binghamton
to fill the auditorium
for Dave's presentation.
We were especially pleased
to welcome five members
of our neighbor user
group MacSTAC,
the Macintosh Southern
Tier Apple Club.
With
his trademark energy
and good cheer, Dave
brought us up to speed
on the newest iMacs,
Mac minis and MacBook
Pros running Intel processors
and promised more Intel-based
hardware from Apple
in the months to come.
He gave us a quick look
at iWork (Pages and
Keynote), then treated
us to an in-depth tour
of the iLife 06 applications,
including iPhoto, iMovie,
iDVD and GarageBand,
along with the brand
new iWeb, He finished
the evening with a step-by-step
demonstration of creating
an "enhanced" Podcast,
complete with pictures,
theme and background
music, chapter headings
and web links, using
GarageBand and the other
iLife 06 applications.
Imagine the possibilities!
The
evening concluded with
refreshments and the
drawing for door prizes
(though not in that
order). We were lucky
to have a special selection
of prizes for the evening,
courtesy of O'Reilly, Apple, Peachpit and
other vendors. Many
thanks to Dave Marra,
and to MUG ONE's officers
and board members, who
worked to make the evening
a resounding success.
Wednesday,
April 5 Meeting
More
Tips & Tricks,
Font Management and
What's Behind the Screen?
Our
encore Tips & Tricks
meeting featured Gerry
Stoner on
font management, program
co-chair Jesse
Hogue on
the Mac "Virus" – threat
or hoax?, and program
co-chair John Maas showing
what's behind your browser
screen along with a
brief survey of web
design, CSS, RSS and
backing up your bookmarks. Brian
Foley finished
the evening with a selection
of low tech ways to
handle your email and
a demo of Backdrop,
a utility that covers
distractions on your
screen. Gerry and Brian
furnished top-notch
handouts, continuing
a tradition started
by Jesse Hogue. An excellent
meeting, thanks to our
excellent presenters!
Wednesday, March 8 Meeting
"By Special Request - Tips, Tricks and Cool Product Demos"
Join us on Wednesday, March 8 at 7:30 p.m. in Hogdon IRC, Lecture Hall 4 on the SUNY Oneonta campus for our monthly meeting of MUG ONE.
Program co-chairs John Maas, Brian Foley and Jesse Hogue will present an evening of tips, tricks and "ten minute short takes" on topics suggested at our February meeting. Then president Elsa Travisano will demonstrate some cool products from Macworld Expo San Francisco, including Delicious Library. For "dessert" we'll be viewing more Photoshop training sessions from Photoshop World Boston 2005, courtesy of Peachpit Press.
Apple
CEO Steve Jobs
announced Intel-based
iMacs and MacBooks,
iLife '06,
iWork
'06
and
more
at
January's
Macworld
Expo
Keynote
in
San
Francisco.
Photo
by
Elsa
Travisano
Wednesday,February
1, 2006
Meeting
Macworld Expo San Francisco Report & Peachpit Photoshop World Boston Special Presentation
MUG
ONE president and Apple
User Group Advisory Board member
Elsa Travisano shared
the sights and insights
from Macworld
Expo San Francisco and User
Group University 2006 with
forty MUG ONE members
and guests at our first
meeting of 2006. Along
with her photos, she
shared tips for creating
a slide show in iPhoto
5 and for using Safari
to copy images from the
web. Program co-chair
John Maas solicited suggestions
for spring program topics,
and Terry Helser delighted
us with home baked mint
chocolate cookies — they
went fast!
After our break for door prizes and refreshments, we watched videos of Photoshop training sessions by some renowned presenters from Photoshop World Boston 2005, courtesy of Peachpit Press, who generously provided candy, popcorn, discounts and door prizes to augment our viewing pleasure. We made a good start, but with over an hour and forty minutes of content it was clear that viewing the sessions was going to be a multi-meeting proposition. So we talked it over and came up with a solution - we'll view the remaining segments at the end of our meetings over the next few months.
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