MAC Users Group Meeting 12/17/13

Meeting

We had 12 participants who were lucky enough to experience a presentation by Marty Schwan about
iPhoto

Thanks to Marty who did a nice job especially by keeping it simple.  I think we all learned something.  I'm including a link to Macmost for an iPhoto tutorial:  http://macmost.com/tag/iphoto There are lots of tutorials included on this page.  

One of Marty's best suggestions is to use iPhoto help or Google your question.  You'll find more answers than you have time to read.  

Example

When I got home I tried to open my iPhoto and it gave me an error message saying:  "You can't open your library using this version of iPhoto." and shut down.  ????  I googled the problem and found the answer.  Hold the option key while starting iPhoto and select another library or create a new one.  

Christmas Letter

Gail Krause gave a quick and simple presentation on making a Christmas Letter with Apple's word processing program Pages.  She did a nice job even tho she was surprised by an early morning request to present.  Thanks very much to Gail.  

I couldn't find a specific link to Christmas letters but here is one for Christmas cards using Pages:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxkZ47HTsk4 

Pages

Next Meeting

Will be January 7th, 1PM in the San Tan room as usual.  We will be talking about Password systems and how to minimize hacking.  

Merry Christmas

MAC Users Meeting 12/10/13

Scanning

by Tom Gottfried

Tom has given me permission to publish his notes for Tuesday lasts meeting:

Subject: Scanning There are many types of scanners but for our purpose today we will discuss the most common,

the flatbed scanner.

Most common uses for flatbed scanners:

HP 6500 A, all in one

1. Photos. Photos can be black and white or color. You can scan printed photos, slides, or even

“film” or old negatives.

2. Documents.

1. Important papers
2. 2. Recipes
3. 3. Magazine articles
4. 4. Coupons

The list is endless and only limited to your ingenuity.

3. Odd items, like leaves, flowers, coins, or other 3 dimensional objects . This is where you can

really get creative.

What should I look for when buying a scanner? If you already have a printer you may only need to buy the scanner. However, if you do not have a printer or if your printer is an older model and time it is replaced, give consideration to a multiple use printer, scanner, copier. Yes, you can buy one machine that will do all three functions.

What should I pay for a scanner? You can pay as little as $50 or as much as several thousand. It really depends on how serious you want to get in your photo scanning. For most of us a good quality combination scanner, printer, copier will cost between $100 - $200. If all you plan on scanning are documents, you can pick up a unit for about $50 or less. Go to Staples in the Promenade shopping center and ask for an associate who knows something about scanners. Tell them what you are planning to use it for and ask what machine would be good for you.

Scanners come with various software bundles. This may include photo editing tools and an important tool for documents called OCR. (Optical Character Recognition) If you scan a document, it is actually a picture, whether you save it as a .jpeg or a PDF file. OCR software will scan the document and convert it into a document that can be edited. In other words, if you scan a recipe called Martha’s Favorite Casserole and you would prefer it to be called Mom’s Favorite Casserole, using OCR will allow you to do that.

http://www.scantips.com/

Once I scan a photo or document, where do I put it so that I can easily find it? Your scanner will store your scans in a pre-determined file if you do not specify where you want to put it. In Finder, you can set up your folders and files before hand. For example, let’s say you are scanning a number of recipes and want to categorize them. Click on Finder. A box will open.Click on Documents. Go to the top left of the page and click on File and then click on “Folder”. In the next row of the box you will see “untitled folder”. Hit the return button and “untitled folder” will be highlighted. You can now rename it recipes. Go back to File and hit folder once more. In the next row you will see untitled folder again. When it is highlighted you can create a folder named desserts. Go back and highlight Recipes again and go to file and hit new folder again. You will see untitled folder again. Once again, you can call it whatever you want. In this “row” you can create as many categories as you want. Once you are ready to enter dessert recipes, click on desserts and then go to File and if you want to even further define them, go to File and create another folder and “untitled folder will appear once again and you can create various categories of desserts.

http://macmost.com/using-image-capture-with-scanners.html  The fast talking guy.  

For photos, once you’ve scanned them into a folder you can drag them into iPhoto or Aperture, or whatever photo software you are using. Or, when you are scanning, you can tell the scanning program where you want to save the file. But, you will need to make sure your photo library set up to receive the photos. In other words, if you don’t have a file system set up in your photo library it will be much like taking them and dumping them into a box just like we did with all those old pictures. And this is what we are trying to get away from.

No matter how you create or import a file, if you save it but allow your Mac decide where to put it, you may find that once you’ve created a number of files, they may be hard to find. Why not create your own file system the way you want it? Then you can tell your Mac where you want to put your precious files. Otherwise it’s like the messy old desk with piles of papers on it making what you’re looking for a real pain.

If you have any questions on scanning you can call me at house phone 7251 or my cell is 262-844-6008. Or, I’m normally at the Mac meeting around 12:30 and will stay after the meeting if you need help.

Tom Gottfried

I've inserted links to some websites which give more info.  Googling scanning will turn up more info.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfZcFtHfhoc How to use an HP all in one.  

Thanks very much Tom!

Next meeting 12/17/13.  See you then.  

Mike

MAC Meeting 12/3/13

Mike gave a presentation focused on iCloud.  Here are his notes and some links to websites for further study.  

iCloud

First, the cloud; is a collection of servers at various ground locations possibly throughout the world. Not up in the air. Most of us don't realize it but 95% are now using some form of cloud service. Consider, banking, gmail, hotmail, facebook, Apple, Dropbox, Skydrive=Microsoft.

Pros

no big programs on your device

cloud stores data

access from anywhere

share docs & photos

won't lose data

Cons

must have internet service

can be hacked

Speaking of hacking

Prisim, an NSA program has penetrated the cloud storage of various firms, Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft and other data giants. Is your data secure, I don't think so but its up to you what you use the the cloud for. The other services mentioned above you're probably already using. Try to be careful. Government has so much $ there's no end to how much they can spend hacking whatever they want. I trust them to misbehave in some cases. As I mentioned don't store sensitive data on the cloud.

Safety in cloud

use and change passwords regularly. Don't store sensitive data, instead use an external backup HD and a backup program like Time Machine.

iCloud

I'm only going to speak mostly about MAC computers as that is the focus of our group although iCloud is usable by most every Apple product. The main function of iCloud is to make it simple to sync data across various compatible devices.

What is iCloud: Launched 6/6/11, Apple has secure servers at different locations where your data is encrypted and resides in many places on land (not in the sky) but they also have a key which enables Apple to read anything it likes.

On MACs

Only Lion, 10.7 and later are capable of using iCloud.

Go to system preferences; internet and wireless.

Click on iCloud and

Sign in with your Apple ID & Password

Here is a website which give a good explanation:

http://macs.about.com/od/usingyourmac/qt/Setting-Up-An-Icloud-Account-On-Your-Mac.htm

Select what you want to put in the cloud list.

List includes:

mail, contacts, calendar which doesn't stay on your device, notes, Safari, documents & data, Back to my mac, find my MAC ??

Still need to have backup working as iCloud doesn't save everything. Need to use Time Machine or other backup program. iCloud backs up info about your purchase history but no the actual content except for documents created with Apple programs.

Photos=1000 for 30 days

device settings

home screen and app organization

ringtones,

visual voicemail.

Cost: 5GB free, 10GM $20/yr. 20GB $40/yr, 50GB $100/yr.

Another website which has many tutorial.

Macmost: http://macmost.com/icloud-basics.html

Icloud.com: Sign on to iCloud here to see what you have stored. Www.icloud.com

Cloud computing is already here and Sky computing seems to be the next thing. Complicated large programs will and probably are now accessible which makes me wonder where the data you create will be? Can you only save it to your own machine or does it automatically get clouded?

MAC Blog

http://palmcreekmacusers.blogspot.com/

Next week will be a surprise, at least to me as I was thinking about my presentation and didn't take notes.  

Your faithful servant,

Mike