December 20, 2005, Annual Holiday Party This year our annual Holiday Party will take place on Tuesday, December 20th from 6-9pm. As an extra special Silent Raffle item we will have a BRAND NEW iPod nano (black 2GB). This wonderful item is being donated by PMUG member Sharon Fordham. This item will be for members only! Tickets will be the normal 12 for $5 for all current members. Non-members will have the chance to join PMUG prior to the raffle. Remember that the holiday party is our only other fundraiser next to member dues so come for food, drink, merriment, the chance to help PMUG, and maybe win a new iPod nano.For our flea-market silent raffle we once again we ask you to look around your office, home office, and computer areas to find those treasures that you deem unnecessary to keep. Sharing with other members at PMUG our long forgotten hardware and software items is probably the best second life we can give any of these things. Note: Please only bring equipment that is in working condition. You must bring your equipment back home if it is not won by anyone. It can not be left behind. If you came to our holiday party in recent years, you know what fun we had. If you're new to our Silent Raffle you are in for a treat. Everyone at the meeting can participate just by donating any Apple Computer related product that has lost its usefulness to you and buying raffle tickets. The Silent Raffle is similar to a swap meet but a little more organized and a lot fairer. The vital information is below:
November 8, 2005, Portable Media Devices with Doug Dixon Who says you can't take it with you? In today's digital life, you can squeeze billions of bytes onto a postage-stamp memory, and tens to hundreds of gigabytes onto a pocket-sized hard drive. And that's not just data -- it's your entertainment and memories as media: huge collections of your favorite music, photo slide shows, and even videos, available to enjoy and share, anytime and anywhere.Come on down to PMUG for a show and tell demonstration of portable devices. Doug Dixon will explore the amazing range of possibilities for portable storage and media playback, from storage on USB thumb drives and portable discs, to media players and iPods, to live streaming on camera phones and PDAs. Douglas Dixon is an independent technology consultant, author, and speaker specializing in digital media. He makes his articles and technical references freely available on his Manifest Technology website. Previously a product developer at Intel Corp. and Sarnoff Corp., Doug is the author of four books and has published some 200 feature articles. He is currently editor-at-large for IRMA's Mediaware magazine, contributing editor for Camcorder and Computer Video magazine, and a contributor to DV Magazine, CNET Reviews, and the U.S.1 newspaper in Princeton. Doug also has organized and presented eighty seminars and talks on digital media topics in the past five years, for professional groups and at conferences including NAB, CES, Government Video Expo, and DV Expo. October 11, 2005, iListen voice-recognition softwareJoin MacSpeech CEO Andrew Taylor as he shows how to use speech recognition to dictate to, as well as command & control your Macintosh. Andy will show you how to achieve the best results using their flagship product, iListen. He will cover basics such as how to train the software to recognize your voice, how to add new words, and how to use iListen to control your Mac.Andrew Taylor is the Chief Technology Officer for MacSpeech Inc. the makers of iListen for the Macintosh. September 13, 2005, Open Source Software: What is It and Why You Should CareIra Fuchs will speak about Open Source Software (OSS), which is open, public, non-proprietary source code. OSS also comes with certain rights such as the ability to run it for any purpose, study how it works, change it, and then to redistribute it: its distribution license may or may not require that modified versions be transmitted with the same ground rules.OSS is all around us. A prime example is the Internet itself. Its infrastructure and protocols were out in the open from the very beginning. Then there's Linux, which grew out of the Unix operating system developed by Bell Laboratories in the 70s. Linux has reached a market penetration greater than 15%, mostly in the server market. Apache is OSS used by two-thirds of the Websites on the Internet and is freely available. The Firefox Web browser is another example of OSS. It runs identically on Windows, Linux and Macintosh. Because it is OSS, users can modify it by writing plug-ins. Thunderbird is an OSS email client and Sunbird is a calendar program. Come join us for an interesting discussion! Ira Fuchs is Vice President for Research in Information & Technology and The Mellon Foundation. August 9, 2005, Photoshop Elements 3Miles W. Truesdell III of Leigh Photo & Imaging will present an overview of Photoshop Elements 3, with a focus on correcting digital photos. Photoshop Elements 3 is very popular with Macintosh users because it inexpensive, yet powerful digital photo editor.Following the presentation, there will be a raffle to members of copies of Photoshop Elements 3, books on Photoshop Elements and more. July 12, 2005, Midnightmage Roll Call, Apple's switch to Intel processorsSteve Sheets and Sunny Worrell of Midnight Mage will demonstrate Roll Call Directory, version 1.3. Roll Call works with the OS X Address Book and lets you print into hard copy the exact address book you want or the labels you need. You now control specific areas of address book content to show such areas as names, company names, multiple phone numbers and addresses, email addresses, instant messaging names, and even birthdays! No longer be limited by the Mac OS X Address Book printing capabilities.Following the presentation, PMUGers Bill Achuff, Brian Boccardi and Jeff Gorman will participate in a roundtable discussion of Apple's move to Intel processors and what it means to the user community. They will be joined by Steve Sheets, who attended last month's World-Wide Developer's Conference, at which the announcement of the move to Intel was made. At WWDC Steve had the opportunity to run Roll Call on OS X running on an Intel processor. The Midnight Mage, also known as Steve Sheets, has been developing Macintosh software since 1983. He has worked for Apple Computer on the Apple II and the Macintosh, for AOL, and is now an independent software designer. Sunny Worrell, the creative force in Midnight Mage, has a background in commercial art, design, and advertising. The development group is based in Manassas, VA. June 14, 2005, eBay Simplified with Martin MoshoMartin Mosho will show how to sell items on eBay successfully. It is directed to those with little or no experience in this medium and will cover technical and marketing issues essential to compete and succeed. It will include how and where to obtain merchandise to sell, pricing, copywriting and photography.Martin Mosho has 40 years advertising, sales and marketing experience. He has been a successful eBay vendor for several years with a 100% Favorable rating. He is presently an instructor of Marketing at Mercer County Community College. May 10, 2005, Bob "Dr. Mac" LeVitus returns to show Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" Bob "Dr. Mac" LeVitus will once again be visiting PMUG and MLMUG on May 10-14, 2005. He is eager and ready to further our education and enjoyment of our beloved Macs.On Tuesday, May 10, 2005 the PMUG monthly meeting topic will be introducing Mac OS X "10.4 Tiger." Dr. Mac will also share with us his favorite shareware and utilities. Bob will speak from 7:30 - 9:15 p.m. This will be a truly special meeting with "Dr. Mac" and will end with a great raffle for members: Mac OS X Tiger, iLife '05, iWork and more! Bob LeVitus, often referred to as "Dr. Mac," has been considered one of the world's leading authorities on the Macintosh and Mac OS for nearly twenty years. A prolific author, LeVitus has sold millions of books worldwide in a dozen languages. His recent titles include: "GarageBand For Dummies," and "Mac OS X Panther For Dummies." He also pens columns for the Houston Chronicle newspaper, MacDesign magazine, and Mac Observer Web site. In 2004, LeVitus started Doctor Mac Direct LLC (www.doctormacdirect.com; 877-DrMac4U), a company that provides expert technical help and training to Mac users via phone, e-mail, and/or Internet-enabled remote control software. April 12, 2005, iPhoto 5 and additions, iLife 05 with Rob Golding PMUG member Rob Golding will take you through the ins and outs of iPhoto 5. From importing, editing, organizing and sharing he will cover the gamut of iPhoto 5's features. Special attention will be paid to the newest features version 5 offers such as: hierarchical folder organization, importing RAW format pictures, enhanced editing ability, advanced slideshows, new book formats to order and importing videos into iPhoto.Third party additions, backing up your photo's and using an external photo editor such as Photoshop Elements 3 will also be introduced. At the conclusion other new features in the rest of the iLife 05 applications will be briefly reviewed. For PMUG members we'll end with a rich raffle of iLife 05, Photoshop Elements 2 and some surprises! Rob has been a lifelong resident of the Trenton and Princeton areas. Attending Rider University longer then he intended, he completed his B.S. in Chemistry in May of 2004. It was at Rider in 1989 he found his computer platform of choice in the form of a Mac Plus running MacWrite and ChemDraw. Since joining PMUG in 2002 he has held several positions including leading the Intermediate SIG, President and more recently editor of The Dialog, PMUG's monthly newsletter. March 15, 2005, Webpage creation using Netscape/Mozilla's Composer and style sheetsThe venerable Netscape Communicator suite of applications has been around for over a decade. Recently it has been joined by it's open-source cousin, Mozilla, which contains the same features. Most people simply think of them as another browser or perhaps an email client. But a third powerful ability is built into Netscape/Mozilla: Composer.With Composer you can actually create simple webpages without knowing HTML code. It has a simple WYSIWYG (What You See Is Whay You Get) graphical interface to layout a webpage. Chris will introduce us to this webpage creation application and show us the ins and outs of creating a basic webpage. He will also touch upon some of the tools different ISPs (internet service providers) give to people to help them create webpages. Finally our own Terry Wilson will introduce style sheets and how they can be used to create consistent and professional pages for the web. Chris Jarocha-Ernst has worked for Rutgers University Computing Services for 20 years. He is currently a senior consultant for the faculty/staff computer system, specializing in e-mail and web issues. In addition to his professional interests, Chris has also written A CTHULHU MYTHOS BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CONCORDANCE (Armitage House, 1998), a guide to works using the fictional mythology created by H. P. Lovecraft. Chris last spoke to PMUG in October of 2003 about comparing the various types of browser for the Mac. February 8, 2005, Microsoft's Office 2004:mac with Bill Achuff Bill Achuff will give us a look at what's new in Office 2004 for Macintosh, Microsoft's venerable suite of office applications. We'll see how it compares to its predecessor Office X and what competition there is.New features in Office 2004 include the Project Center with the Project Wizard, one-button access, and project sharing. Word 2004 now provides a Notebook Layout View which many Office users will find useful. Excel 2004 adds a Mac-first feature, the new Page Layout View to facilitate the creation of improved spreadsheets. Bill Achuff is Co-Director of the User Group Alliance and a long time PMUG/MLMUG member. He's a frequent presenter, one with fifteen years of experience using Apple computers and software of all varieties. Among other Mac-related pursuits, Bill is a freelance writer for a variety of publications and other media outlets. January 11, 2005, Managing your money on a Mac with Joel MayStarting with a timely look at Turbo Tax, the premiere tax preparation software, Joel May will present information on other finance-related software and web sites designed to help us track, invest, and manage our money.Joel has spent most of his adult life teaching, first at the Graduate School of Business of the University of Chicago and, subsequently, at the School of Public Health of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey with a stint in between as President of the Health Research and Educational Trust of New Jersey, a subsidiary of the New Jersey Hospital Association. He holds a BS degree in Economics from Albright College and an MBA and PhD in Economics and Statistics from the University of Chicago. He's been using computers since 1961, the Internet since 1974, PCs since 1979, and the World Wide Web since 1994. Since his retirement in 1995, he has volunteered his time teaching computer skills to senior citizens at the Ewing SeniorNet Computer Literacy Center, reading for the blind at the NJ Library for the Blind and Handicapped and singing in Princeton Pro Musica and the Hopewell Valley Community Chorus. | |||
