PMUG's Annual Holiday Party/Social Each December, instead of the usual meeting, we follow a simpler format to celebrate the holiday season and spend some time getting to know each other or catch up. The How & Why SIG will run from 6:00 to 7:30 as usual. Everyone will then assemble in the auditorium for general business items and some general Q&A until 8:00. We will then break up and everyone is free to socialize, taste the edible treats that everyone has brought in to share, and take an informal look at Apple's eMate computer. Don Smith from the Neptune High School Library is something of an expert on this fun laptop specifically designed for students. He will be happy to answer any questions on the eMate. November 11, Global Positioning System (GPS & the Personal Computer, by Keith Sproul) GPS, Global Positioning System, is a fast-growing technology that will impact all of our lives over the next few years. GPS has many applications, from the obvious to the completely non-obvious. Keith will discuss the basic principles of how GPS works and show an application that he has developed that uses GPS together with a Mac. The program is called MacAPRS (tmk) -- Automatic Postion Reporting System. It has been used to track people, vehicles, and even weather balloons and model rockets. Keith will discuss and demonstrate both the software* and hardware. He will also discuss other present uses for GPS technology and its future. * The software is available as shareware and can be downloaded from http://aprs.rutgers.edu/MacAPRS.htm. Keith Sproul has been a Amateur Radio operator (WU2Z) all of his life. He has created software for the Macintosh that uses GPS technology for tracking moving things such as vehicles, objects, people, etc. This software was designed for use in the Amateur Radio community but is finding wide acceptance by other users of GPS. Keith has been the Chairman of the Macintosh User Group Section of the Amateur Computer Group of New Jersey since 1984. He is the Vice Chaiman of R.A.T.S. Radio Amateur Telecommunications Society, a Life member of the American Radio Relay Leagure, and a member of Edge of Space Sciences, a group of individuals who use amateur radio and balloons to study the upper atmosphere. Keith is the Rutgers University Coordinator of the Student Housing Computer Network. The network currently comprises several hundred personal computers in 14 dorm buildings located on campuses in New Brunswick, Piscataway, Newark, and Camden. October 14, Brent Bailey from Adobe Systems, Inc. Brent Bailey is one of our favorite speakers, formerly with Apple. Adobe (http://www.adobe.com/) has made major changes to many of its products with new upgrades, particularly Photoshop, Illustrator and PageMaker. All three of these products now look more similar and work more closely and easily with each other. They are all optimized to be better web design tools. Adobe Acrobat and its PDF format are becoming increasingly important to the publishing industry, the enterprise market and the expanding uses of the Web. Brent will cover all this and more with blinding speed and wit. September 12, Novice Users 2nd Annual Spectacular I actually don't know what to call this meeting, but PMUG has realized that although many of us have advanced technically speaking over the years, many of our members are new to computers or the Mac or simply are not technical types who still need to use their Macs as fully as possible. PMUG meetings unfortunately tend to be leave some in the dust no matter how hard we try to cover all bases. So September is our tribute to our "novice" members. We want to spend the whole evening covering topics as basically as needed. We are so far considering spending much of this year's meeting discussing preventive maintenance for your Mac and all the confusing software that can be of tremendous help. Some preventive measures that you may not be familiar with don't require any software. And some of the best software requires someone with experience to explain it. August 12: MacWorld Expo Boston Wrap-up Many of PMUG's members can't wait to go to MacWorld Expo Boston each year. It is not only a good way to find out what is what in the Mac world for those of us outside the inner circles but it is a lot of fun. There are seminars all week that can be fascinating and very helpful or sometimes boring. Steve Jobs will be the keynote speaker this year. Each year I come back with a ton of literature and chatchkas (sp?) for PMUG members and we do a small wrapup. There are so many changes in the Mac world this year that we thought we would devote more time to covering what PMUG members thought was fun or noteworthy to share. This may include demos if we get any from vendors and a slide show! Bill Achuff of the User Group Alliance will be on hand to give his detailed view of MacWorld. [In retrospect, this Boston MacWorld was the most exciting in recent memory. Jobs' speech, the new board of directors, and the news about Microsoft's new involvement and settlements stunned everyone. Read the Time magazine cover article on Jobs for a "backstage" view of what happened. I noticed that Jobs commented afterwards that everyone seemed to miss the big news that Microsoft had settled (financially) with Apple on the patent disputes. After reviewing the tape of the speech again, I don't think we missed it so much as he didn't phrase it quite that way on stage. He couldn't say at MacWorld that Microsoft had actually given in and paid big bucks. ] July 8: CyberStudio from GoLive and Mac OS 8 Greg Rewis, Director of Customer Support for GoLive (http://www.golive.com) will be here from California to demonstrate his company's very cool product, CyberStudio. I saw this web site development and management tool demonstrated at Seybold in New York in April. I was amazed at the versatility, flexibility and fine detail it allowed in a clean, easy interface. (I also saw the demo for only 5 minutes since I had 3 hours to see the whole show.) You can download a demo from their web site if you want to check for yourself. GoLive CyberStudio lets graphic designers and publishers visually design and manage a professional-quality Web site -- including the latest multimedia features--without performing any HTML programming. Yet, GoLive CyberStudio also includes HTML source-code and JavaScript tools, which help Web designers and programmers integrate interactivity into a site. Because GoLive CyberStudio is the first Web site design software to always work in a native HTML file format, it allows graphic designers and Web programmers to work together to create innovative, professional-quality Web sites for their clients. June 10: Web Design from a Working Web Master Chris Converse is a relatively young graphic/web designer who is making a name for himself in Philadelphia. He has completed an entire web site for the Wharton School and is working full-time on the web site of the University of Pennsylvania Health Services. The UPHS site is interesting for the innovative use of technology to communicate medical information. I think it is fascinating that he managed to pull together two academic sites so thoroughly and beautifully while "communicating" with the various departments. Reviewed sites in presentation The Wharton School http://www.wharton.upenn.edu PMUG Features Dr. Mac, Bob LeVitus at its May 13, 1997Bob LeVitus is on tour around the country for Motorola and their StarMax Mac clone computers. He will be here to speak to us at our May 13 meeting. He will be supported by local Motorola representatives and one from the Tempe, Arizona facility.Bob LeVitus is a leading authority on the Mac, the author of 23 computer books, including "Cheap & Easy Internet Access," "WebMaster Mac," and "System 7.5 for Dummies." His most recent book is "Guide to the Macintosh Underground." Bob LeVitus was the editor-in-chief of the popular monthly periodical MACazine until its untimely demise in 1988. Since 1989, he has been a contributing editor/columnist for MacUser magazine, writing the Help Folder, Beating the System, Personal Best, and Game Room columns at various times in his career. Always a popular speaker at computer user group and trade show meetings, Bob has addressed more than 100 international seminars, presented keynote addresses in several countries, and produced a series of seminars on How to Become a Macintosh Power User. (He also won the Macworld Expo MacJeopardy World Championship three times before retiring his crown.) A tireless publicity hound, Bob's achievements have been documented in major media around the world. Bob is known for his expertise, his humorous style and his ability to translate "techie" jargon into usable and fun advice for the rest of us. He lives in Austin, Texas with his family and Macintoshes. PMUG Features the Internet Relay Chat at its April 8, 1997 MeetingWhen we think "Internet" we usually think of email and the World Wide Web. For years, Internet users around the world have had the ability to chat with each other using IRC (Internet Relay Chat). Two PMUG members will be presenting IRC in real-time. Ariane Presser, an avid IRC user, will demonstrate IRC remotely with the in-person assistance of Sheldon Presser.PMUG Features Family Tree Maker and Quicken Deluxe at its March 11, 1997 MeetingThis month we get to meet some of our members and learn some of their interests. We will begin at 7:30 by introducing your executive committeeMegan Peterson will demonstrate Family Tree Maker (CD) from Broderbund as she builds her own family tree information. Jim Bird will show us the newest Quicken Deluxe. We will finish with more Q&A as time permits. PMUG Features a Apple Computer Representative at its February 11, 1997 MeetingBrent Bailey, an employee of Apple from Philadelphia will be visiting us. Mid-January he had an opportunity to attend a meeting with Ellen Hancock and get the story on what the whole Apple/NeXT initative means. He will also discuss Harmony and demo some new QTVR content. Possible agenda:
PMUG Features Mariner Write and SuperCard at its January 14, 1997 MeetingWe begin the evening with Randy Zeitman, software evangelist for Mariner Write 1.3, a new streamlined but feature-rich word processing program to consider as an alternative to older and much larger programs. Mariner Write comes from Mariner Software, Inc. MacWeek magazine did a review in October.PMUG member Chris Keuper has recently rewritten the user manual for the new version of SuperCard, 3.0. SuperCard has long been an alternative to HyperCard for authoring but has new features for powerful and efficient multimedia authoring for anyone creating media-rich Internet applications, training courseware, content titles, or custom applications. SuperCard comes from Allegiant Technologies, Inc. (Please check their web site also.) | |||
