… our inaugural year as the
Santa Barbara Apple Users Group
Presented in reverse chronological order.
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18 December 2013 Main Meeting…
December’s meeting included a list of super-handy-cool-stuff presented by several folks:
- How-To create and add your signature to sign a PDF with Preview.
- OS X Image Capture‘s cool tasks & tricks.
- iPhoto: Two suggestions for making/moving copies — and removing photos from iPhoto’s database.
- Kanex: A neat (small) Foldable iDevice Stand.
- Bartender_Mac Menu Bar Item Control. Lets you organize your menu bar apps.
- [Log on] Password trick linked to Bluetooth pairing.
- PopClip. Fast text editing: Automatically shows options (your preferences) on highlighted text.
- A ‘bigger’ Clipboard: Jumpcut allows more than one item in Clipboard — including whole articles with photos.
- Skitch [Recommended version 1.0.11]: a super-handy selective-screen-capture program with added tools (colors, boxes, arrows, etc.) & lots of SaveAs (file type) options.
- Dictation & Speech with Siri: [Amazing] Dictation-to-text demoed. (Note: Siri has great built-in [correct] spelling.)
- Nightstand Central: Beautifully designed (music alarm) clock with weather and customizable photo backgrounds.
- The use of AirServer: an AirPlay receiver similar to an Apple TV — to stream content or Mirror your display.
- EMail FYI: You can set-up different eMail Clients in order to separate your personal ‘groups-of-interest.’
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20 November 2013 Main Meeting…
November’s meet-up Q&As covered a veritable list of topics: Cox modem recommendations, router specs, Mac settings, .csv file type (comma separated values), iTunes Radio, and Time Machine set-up(s). Mike Bishop gave an update on the transition from his MacMechanic store to the (now) MacSuperstore.
Ricky Rodriguez shared cool tips and features with the OS X Mavericks upgrade (keyboard shortcuts, energy usage, Gmail settings, and the OS X upgrade news and install info for (some) 2007 MacBooks).
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16 October 2013 Meeting Summary…
October’s topics (presented on the large screen) included: Apple TV (animated screen saver) photo themes, a short PBS video, and the iOS Sleep Cycle app.
The Apple TV has a list of animated photo montage themes. Harold Adams [SBAUG VP] demoed many of the… colorful themes using the Apple Remote.
“The Quantified Self: Data Gone Wild?” is a report by PBS correspondent Hari Sreenivasan. The group watched this five minute PBS Newshour–Weekend video about the growing popularity of using devices to monitor personal activity states and the chart data outputs. It follows one man and some of the Apple devises he uses to self-track aspects of his daily life using wearable sensors and wireless computing. David Pogue added some commentary on these new data-gathering “routines.”
The iOS (alarm clock) app Sleep Cycle was demoed by Jim Tinsley [President] from his iPhone. This “waking app” monitors your movements/non-movements during sleep and wakes you up in your lightest sleep phase. Jim displayed a few sleep-monitored graphs recorded by the app.
Jim T. also took us through a short “tour” of some pages under construction at the SBAUG.org website. That was followed by a spontaneous after-meeting discussion on 3D printing brought the evening to a close.
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18 September 2013 Meeting Summary…
September’s round-table discussion included several topics. 1) Organizing photos: Digital cameras make it easy to take a lot of pictures. Ed Adams [SBAUG Member] recommends to evaluate them as they come in, put “second tier” images on another hard drive, and, make sure to add “key words” or “people’s names” to them. Plus, back up regularly. 2) Ed downloaded the new iOS7 earlier in the day — and projected his screen on Petrini’s screen. He talked about the new layout/interface changes — and pointed out the black-&-while icon designs. Ed reported that Apple has added tools for greater Accessibility for some individuals (e.g. large text, zoom, voice options). 3) A question about different phone-plans brought up a discussion of AT&T and T-Mobile contracts.
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21 August 2013 Meeting Summary…
One attendee had this to say… “I would like to thank Ed Togami and his son for the very interesting presentation. I especially like the part where he said young people can experiment with Aquino [Arduino?] devices. I ran across a statistic about how far down our country is in science education of young people compared with China and a lot of European countries. The open house on Aero Camino was really interesting with the 3D printers and the people there were friendly and demonstrated the printers!” Anonymous
The August meeting featured Ed Togami and his son Kenzie, who talked about the “Maker” movement. The basic premise is to use simple computer interfaces plus various electronic hardware, transducers, etc., to make simple devices to do fun and useful things. As with all things computer, the hobbyist uses software to control his/her devices and to determine what they do. This harkens back to the days of early amateur radio when everyone built his/her own gear, and later to early home-built personal computers. Ed talked about the Maker community in Santa Barbara, and Kenzie demonstrated a project that he built. Ed and Kenzie brought some Arduino microcontroller projects to show how the Macintosh can be used to program them.
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17 July 2013 Meeting Summary…
July’s topics: We discussed differences between Apple‘s iCloud service and Dropbox‘s Cloud storage and file-sharing service. Two Cloud backup applications had enthusiasts: Arq — online backup built especially for the Mac; and Crashplan — offsite, onsite, & Cloud backup service, with easy-to-restore features. Plus, Ian gave a demonstration of Burn Note, a web secure, timed-message service, great for sharing passwords, etc. (A big thank you to the ten who shared their knowledge on these topics. It made for a great evening [using Petrini’s wireless mic set-up this time].)
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19 June 2013 Meeting Summary…
June’s topic: Tips for Password-Management Applications. — 1Password (presentation), Dashlane, and PasswordWallet (discussion). Plus, two videos on the big screen: an Apple review about using their technology to help people with medical needs; and a Jonathan Ives Apple video about iOS7.
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15 May 2013 Meeting Summary…
May’s round-table discussion: RoaringApps, an application-compatibility wiki for Mac OS X Mountain Lion & iOS 5, databasing thousands of apps and whether they’re compatible with Mountain Lion. Deleting applications: One product, AppZapper, finds the extra files and lets you delete them with one click. Adobe’s announcement that future versions of the company’s Creative Suite products, including Photoshop, will be available only on a (Cloud) subscription basis. Mention of Pixelmator — a graphic editor developed for Mac OS X — that can create, edit and enhance photos — with layers (as a replacement to Photoshop for some users).
Photos Credit This Meeting: Ian Lessing
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