General Membership Meeting

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General Membership Meeting March 13, 2012

Discussion on new iPad 3

Jim Gordon discussed the convergence of Mac OS & iOS

The Spring Fling Notice is On Line & Flyers were passed out.

Macstories.net for latest news

New Mac Update Bundle for $49.95 has Drive Genius, PDF Pen 5, VM Fusion + many other Apps.

Demo of Snapheal to fix photos. Also showed a video. Available in Mac App Store.

MPlayerX is a Free App. Can play any format of file or streaming.

Do Not Track + can be used to block access to web site. Free @ abine.com  for on line privacy

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General Membership Meeting February 16, 2012    

1.  Latest Mac OS X and iOS news Video on Mountain Lion 10.8

2.  Communication among iPhones, iPads, Mac's & PC's - iChat, FaceTime & Skype

3. PDF Pen Demo (making fillable forms) PDF Expert for iPad works better. Making Forms using Excel Spreadsheet.

 

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General Membership Meeting January 19, 2012    

1.  Latest Mac OS X and iOS news

2.  Communication among iPhones, iPads, Mac's & PC's - iChat, FaceTime & Skype

3. PDF Pen Demo (making fillable forms)

4.  Free Apps from the Mac App Store: iBoostUp, Smart Converter and RingTone Maker

 

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General Membership Meeting October 20, 2011

ELECTION:  Carl Ohsiek presented the Slate for 2011.

President: Steve Heider

Vice President: Mark Pierro

Secretary: Carl Ohsiek

Treasurer: Bruce Kreitner

 

Two Board Members:

Irene Cycon

Arvela Heider

Ballot  put up on Screen

 

The floor was opened for Nominations.

There were none.

 

Motion by Jim Gordon, Second by Tom Brylinsky to have the Secretary cast one

vote for the Slate on Ballot.

 

Jim Gordon, Vendor Liason, would like someone else to do it since his ID doesn't work. Fritz Wonnacott volunteered to do the OnLine Apple part.

Discussed Solutions Plus Store as a meeting place. Decided to stay where we are.

Discussed purpose of user group. Has changed over the years. Still feel there is a place for it.

Discussed Bento, simplified Filemaker Database. Import Appleworks Database using  .tsv export.

Discussed Jacksta for capturing online audio video. Also plug ins for Fire Fox Browser.

Discussed Winebittler used to run Windows App on OSX. It is a "Beta".

Discussed PhoneDisk.com which can make iPhone & iPad look like a volume on your Mac. Similar to a FlashDrive!

Discussed iOS 5 on the iPad Newstand -E-magazines. Notifications is cleaner now also wireless Airplay.

Free Apps @ APP Store - Yellow Pages for phone #, businesses Name lookup etc.

Easy Ringtone - Make your own ringtones.   Jigsaws Galore - Make computer screen jigsaw puzzles.

Jin Gordon demo'd answers.yahoo.com  Many vendors have moderators online for answers to questions. Open to anyone to read but requires sign up to ask questions.

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General Membership Meeting Thursday September 15, 2011

1. Latest Mac OS X and iOS news 
2. Club Business - Officer elections coming up in October. Same Slate as in 2010
3. Jim Gordon put together a cornucopia of Mac goodies to demonstrate!
4. Bundlehunt.com  $49 special bundle of Apps
5. MacUpdate.com  $49 special bundle of Apps including Toast 11 & Data Rescue 3
6. Blurb.com  Make a book Self publishing made easy.
7. MacPractice.com  Medical Apps
8. Freeverse.com  Games & Utilities  
9. Open Forum  Discussed having meetings at Solutions Plus new store in Eastern Hills Mall

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General Membership Meeting Thursday June 20, 2011

1. Latest MAC OS X , iOS news and iCloud

2. Demo more useful utilities

3. Annual Picnic & Swap Meet update

4. Open Forum Q & A 

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General Membership Meeting Thursday May 19, 2011

1. Latest MAC OS X and iOS news

2. Demo MacKeeper, LableMaker Utility, New iMac with Thunderbolt

3. Open Forum Q & A

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General Membership Meeting March 17, 2011 

1. Latest Mac OS X and iOS news & Snacks!
2. iMovie & Garage Band for iOS
3. Lyrica - a nifty program that searches seven online lyrics databases for the currently playing track in iTunes and displays those lyrics
4. Desktop Curtain - a simple tool to hide the clutter on your desktop. It's good for teachers, presenters, writers, developers, and anyone else that hates clutter and/or needs to take screenshots with a clean background
5. Open Forum  

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General Membership Meeting February 17, 2011

Items on the agenda:

1. Latest Mac OS X and iOS news
2. Bruce Kreitner demo'd some must-have utility programs
3. Steve Heider demo'd the Apple Hardware Testing Tools
4. Lyrica - a nifty program that searches seven online lyrics databases for the currently playing track in iTunes and displays those lyrics
5. Cool App Store apps
6. Open Forum
7.  

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General Membership Meeting January 20, 2011 (New Location Room 120, Service Building 220 Winspear Ave UB South Campus)

Items on the agenda:

1. Latest Mac OS X and iOS news
2. The Mac App Store
3. Dave Scotch  demo'd AutoCad
4. Open Forum

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General Membership Meeting October 21, 2010 (New Location Room 120, Service Building 220 Winspear Ave UB South Campus)

Elections - Slate Presented. Pres. Mark Pierro, VP Bruce Kreitner, Sec Steve Heider, Treas Carl Ohsiek, Board Member Terry Cycon

Meeting opened for Nominations. None presented. Tom Brylinski moved to close Nominations, Second  by Arvela Heider and passed.

Tom Brylinski moved to have Secretary cast one vote for the Slate. Second by Jim Gordon and passed. Secretary cast one Ballot for Slate.

November 18, 2010 Dinner Party at the Red Mill Flyer handed out.

Watched video about new MacBook Air, Mac OSX "Lion" (Avail Summer 2011) & FaceTime for Mac. See Apple.com web site for info.

Mark Pierro talked about Safari 5 Extentions, (Plug Ins to add functions to Safari) See Apple Web Site for info.

Jim Gordon talked bout MS Office 2011 for MAC. "Cloud" folders 25GB on MS Server "Sky Drive" Free avail to all.

Co-authoring - simultaneous  use of same document by several users in real time.

Home - Student version omits Outlook & Automator; Home - Business version includes Outlook & Automator.

WORD - Has many free online templates. Can use Spotlite to search templates. ToolBar can be customized - Change, hide create your own.

EXCELL - Lots of free online templates. Very much the same as before. some new names - Lists vs Tables.

POWERPOINT - Many changes. Video & sound files easy to embed in presentation. Arranging slides into sections & easier to re-arrange.

Can also use "Sky Drive" but not movies or animation. Layers can now rearrange objects much easier, drag & drop.

Visual Basic is now back but it is hidden. Have to select developer menu to choose. Automator is usable thru Office although part of System X.

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General Membership Meeting September 16, 2010 (New Location Room 120, Service Building 220 Winspear Ave UB South Campus)

Discussion of new Apple TV, iPods & iOS4.2 to be released Nov 2010. Will talk more about Apple TV when someone gets one.

Video on Office Mac 2011. Jim Gordon talked a little about it but his MS Non-disclosure developer's agreement Limited this.

Office 2011 will require an Intel Mac.

Dictionary in Mac OSX apple mail is not too bad but not as good as MS Manager.

Spotlite in OSX is great for finding stuff on your computer. "hover" over an entry & get more info. Can also do math in spotlite

Apple "Express Lane" Info on your apple equipment for trouble shooting.

Terminal Tricks See Aug 2010 issue of Mac Life for 25 cool tricks. Careful! Errors in Terminal Mode can screw things up! also Maclife.com

atMonitor v.2.1.5 is utility that does more than built in activity monitor. Reference www.atpurpose.com/atmonitor

PDF OCR - solutionswebsite.ca/pdfocrx  Convert pdf file to text document. Free version does only 1 page document

NoScript - Firefox add on for finding out what websites are doing to your computer

macupdate@macupdate.com to find program bundles at reduced prices.

iPod App  mygeneration is interactive with the TV show

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ProMac Summer Picnic & Swap Met Sunday July 18, 2010 at Carl Ohsiek's house.

This year we had beautiful weather & 22 people attended the Picnic. All enjoyed the char broiled hot dogs, baked beans, salads and desserts and especially the fresh corn on the cob!. There were bargains at the Swap Meet. 

Everyone had a good time, plenty to eat and many came away with bargains!

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General Membership Meeting June 17, 2010

Carl Ohsiek gave details about the Annual Picnic & Swap Meet scheduled for Sunday July 18, 2010.

He is volunteering to have it at his home. The Picnic & Swap Meet Flyer is posted on the web site.

Mark Pierro informed us that MicroSoft Office 2010 for Mac is available.

Mark Pierro talked about iPhone4. 600,000 preordered which crashed servers. He had no problem at the ATT store. Monday 6/21/10 can download new iOS4 for iPhone & iPod Touch.

New Mac Mini computer was discussed. Different size and has HDMI out.

Questions & discussion of disk utilities & maintenance apps. Talked about widgets & ONYX app for maintenance.

Also mentioned Cyberduck. Rapidweaver for web design - Flash encoder/HTML5.

Demo'd Taskcard - This is like Post-it notes on screen. $10 for full version, Free version is limited.

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General Membership Meeting May 20, 2010

Carl Ohsiek gave details about the Annual Picnic & Swap Meet scheduled for Sunday July 18, 2010.

Due to the reduced attendence & the increased Park Fee he is volunteering to have it at his home.

The Picnic & Swap Meet Flyer is posted on the web site.

Steve Heider told about a web site that shows the iPad taken apart & dissected. Google "Electronic Design iPad"

Mark Pierro discussed Spell Check Programs. They are similar & auto correct spelling on the fly, set up abbreviations that can expand on the fly  & preferences you can specify.

Typeit4me refer to  www.e2toresoftware.com

Text Expander refer to www.smileonmymac.com

There is also a review in MacWorld Online magazine..

Pixelmator is a $59 replacement for PhotoShop or Elements. Does most of what PhotShop does and missing items have "work arounds". Go to pixelmator.com to review a user manual.

Kylo is a web browser for use with your big screen TV. refer to www.kylo.tv

Also discussed Google TV and NetFlix on the iPad using a cable to the TV.

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Thursday, April 15, 2010 was the Spring Dinner Party at the Family Tree Restaurant. 

23 people attended plus 1 guest) and had a good time with good food.

Mark Pierro gave a Demo of his new iPad,

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General Membership Meeting March 18, 2010

Carl Ohsiek gave details about the Spring Fling Dinner Party on April 15, 2010 at the Family Tree Restuarant. Flyer is posted on the web site. Price is increased because restuarant price went up $2

Mark Pierro talked about various ways to rip DVD's you own to make backup's or copies for iPod & Apple TV. some of the programs discussed were, Ripit, MacThe Ripper & Handbrake.

He also talked about BashFlash, an app to disable Flash plug-in which often gives problems on Mac OS.

 

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General Membership Meeting February 18, 2010

Carl Ohsiek gave details about the Spring Fling Dinner Party on April 15, 2010 at the Family Tree Restuarant. Flyer is posted on the web site. Price is increased because restuarant price went up $2

Steve Heider talked about fancy logic & computer boards at reasonable prices.

Steve Heider demo'd "Siesmic Mac". Uses the motion detector built in the newer Mac laptops.

Mark Adams showed us the program PDFpen. It is a PDF editing program for Mac OSX. Can edit text & images. With this you don't need Adobe's Acrobat Program. Price is $49.95  Website is  smileonmymac.com/PDFpen

Mark Adams showed  program 2UP which can do split screen for 2 applications. It is by radiated software but not available now. Showed Google Browser Chrome in beta.. reviewed it's features.

Showed Google G-Mail an E-mail client. Have a free version & a $49.95 version. It is web based so you can access your e-mail from any computer anywhere. Feature set seems as good as or better than Apple Mail program.

Talked about VideoBox which can download media from many sites (flash) and convert it to quicktime or mp4. etc. Cost $15

web site www.tastyapps.com

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General Membership Meeting January 21, 2010

Mark Donnelly  talked about his latest book about Buffalo, "Frozen Assets". He used his digital camera, the Mac, photoshop and Indesign software.

He pointed out that these are just "tools" and his extensive background in photography, page layout, editing and page layout enabled him to make a

first class book. These tools enabled him to make a Print Shop ready pdf files for economically publishing a book. 10 years ago the same thing would have been cost prohibited. The book can be seen on the WEB at my.youturnpub.com/YouTurn/FrozenAssets/

Jim Gordon talked about some of the latest "rumours" of the Apple Tablet. He also talked about streaming movies from NetFlix. special rate $8.99/month unlimited use. He really likes it.

Mark Pierro says "Flash" on the web slows your computer Recommends disableling Flash unless you have a need for it.

He also talked about using control-command d to bring up floating dictionary in Mac OSX.

He talked about menulets (widgets) at iStatPro; Application Switcher; and Rapid Weaver an App Template for web design.

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General Membership Meeting November 19, 2009

Special Book signing with Jim Gordon

Steve Heider talked about electronic photography & very high definition TV

Jim Gordon talked about the book. Reviewed all "6" books in this one book. Reviewed differences between Mac vs PC versions.

Mac version generally ahead of Windows version. Talked a bit about his co-author Geetesh Bajaj."Live Mesh" used to coordinate between 2 people.

Used Shared Folder on each desktop & very fast. Live Mesh is not available anymore. Try "Drop Box". Bonus Chapters available free at www.miley.com  Search for Office 2008 Mac.

Talked about ACL error on Disk Utilities..(Access Control List error). Can use ACLr8 with disk Utility for correcting disk permissions. 

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General Membership Meeting October 15, 2009

ELECTION:  Tom Szumler presented the Slate for 2010.

President: Steve Heider

Vice President: Mark Pierro

Secretary: Carl Ohsiek

Treasurer: Bruce Kreitner

 

Two Board Members:

Irene Cycon

Another candidate required.

Ballot #1 put up on Screen

 

The floor was opened for Nominations.

Al Harriman nominated Arvela Heider for Board Member, Second by Jim Gordon.

Arvela Heider was added to the Ballot.. Ballot #2 put up on screen.

 

Motion by Tom Brylinsky, Second by Al Harriman to have the Secretary cast one

vote for the Slate on Ballot #2.

 

Steve Heider discussed a book “Mac OS Internals” for some exotic things to do. Changing low level passwords, changing start up sequence using the “Forth” language.

 

Carl Ohsiek announced a special Mac software bundle of 12 apps for $49.99 with one of the apps being “Tech Tools Pro 5” which alone would cost $79.99 @ Amazon.com

Refer to www.macpromo.com  Offer Expires Oct 31, 2009

Also announced the Holiday Party December 10, 2009 at the Red Mill. Flyer shown on the ProMacUG.PBworks.com website. Also showed website meeting history for 3 years.

 

Jim Gordon talked a bit about his book and a couple of other books on Snow Leopard.

There was some discussion about AppleTalk Laser printers not working with Snow Leopard. Searched online for this topic and found webpage blog for various work arounds using adapter cables with USB port.

 

Mark Pierro showed how to use a System X utility called “Font Book” This searches all fonts on your computer and can validate them to avoid odd problems. Can also validate font files

 

Demo of iPhone App “Red Laser” to read product bar codes (using camera) & OnLine database to find description & price in your area.

 

Held a Raffle for 2 Snow Leopard Books.

 

Microsoft “Cloud” gives 25GB free storage.  See  skydiver.live.com

 

Readability - Utility to allow browser to enlarge text in websites. See lab.arc90.com/

 

Apple Mail - “send again” function for mail you change & want to resend.

 

Monitor - a small and lightweight free application that seeks to put regularly visited Web sites within easier reach by putting them all in one window. Can use to automatically refresh screen which is usefull for “twitter” or “eBay auction” Not that great! See createlivelove.com

 

NetNewsWire -  lets you subscribe to news feeds and stands out for its extensive feature set, its easy-to-use interface, and its ability to sync feeds across multiple devices  Handles RSS feeds better than Mail does & has better features.  See VersionTracker.com

 

Why you should be using SuperDuper to make a bootable backup of your system

Create bootable backup on an external HD.Mark Pierro uses a 320GB portable hard drive which allows him to run contents of one machine on any other machine. Cost is $27 for full version. Free version allows you to “clone” your internal HD. Paid version can do incremental updates to “clone”.

 

How to convert your old VHS tapes to digital format

Use “black box” analog to firewire in iMovie.

Can use “passthru” camcorder

Can use VHS to DVD recorder.

Can use Eye TV “stick” for hardware conversion. (much faster)

Mark Pierro is doing this as a long term project since he has many VHS tapes. 

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General Meeting Thursday September 17, 2009

Tom Szumla, Nominating Chair said we need someone to run for Board Member to replace retiring Board Member Jim Stack.

Present Officer's and Board Members are willing to run again but we could really use some ""new blood"!

Events: October 15, 2009 General Meeting  Annual Elections

             November 19, 2009 General Meeting  Book Signing Jim Gordon

              December 10, 2009  Annual Holiday Dinner at Red Milll restaurant

Jim Gordon talked about Office 2008 book he co-authored. He gave some background on the process.

Sno Leopard update was discussed. Point was made the Apple Talk Printers won't work with Sno Leopard.

Need an Intel Machine to use. It is both 32 bit & 64 bit. Default is 32 bit although advertising is 64 bit.

Rosetta emulator for Power PC machines is an option and must be installed manually.

Sno Leopard update is a full install. You do not need to already have Leopard installed despite advertising to the contrary.

Mark Pierro demo'd iStat Menus. Free Utility. from iSlayer.com  Shows  what is going on inside your Mac. Also available as a Widget.

Dropbox is software that syncs your files online and across your computers. Put your files into your Dropbox on one computer, and they'll be instantly available on any of your other computers that you've installed Dropbox on (Windows, Mac, and Linux too!) Because a copy of your files are stored on Dropbox's secure servers, you can also access them from any computer or mobile device using the Dropbox website. 2GB is free, 50GB is $10/month, 100GB is $20/month storage.

Basically is "cloud" storage similat to MobilMe from Apple.

BoxNet is a similar application. 

Could also use the Sharing mode in OS X but is more difficult.

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ProMac Summer Picnic & Swap Meet Sunday July 19, 2009

Despite the gloomy cool weather, 16 brave souls attended the Picnic. All enjoyed the char broiled hot dogs, baked beans, salads and desserts. There were bargains at the Swap Meet. 

Everyone had a good time, plenty to eat and many came away with bargains!

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General Meeting Thursday. June 18, 2009

Mark Pierro Demo'd the following utilities.

WhatsOpen is a Free MacOSX utility designed to aid you in determining what is holding your files open. There is a common OSX error when trying to eject removable media relating to files being in use. Often times your files are in use by Spotlight or some other internal system and you don’t even know what program to kill to free up the files and allow the media to eject. This utility makes that a snap.

LittleSnapper - capture entire webpages - including the bits that are out of view in a standard browser window - to specific windows on your Mac. Cost $39   www.realmacsoftware/littlesnapper

Textcast, a nifty utility that lets you turn such text-based information into spoken-word audio files. And not just standard audio files, but podcast files handled by iTunes  cost $25  www.bitmakie.com/textcast

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General Meeting Thursday. May 21, 2009

Dave Scotch  demo'd: Boxee - a media center application for the Mac with extensive streaming video support;  www.boxee.tv/

Phun - a game like 2D physics sandbox where you can play with physics. Fun for kids and adults,  www.phunland.com

and a demo of an Augmented Reality application using Google Sketchup - a 3D model overlaid real-time video using the iSight camera.

also demo;d Wolfram Alpha -  a knowledge search engine.  www.53.wolframalpha.cc

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20 people attended (2 others had last minute problems & cancelled) and had a good time with good food.

Two books on Adobe Photo Shop CS3 & CS4 were door prizes.

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General Meeting Thursday. March 19, 2009

Mark Pierro showed some of the new features of iLife09 and iWork09. He recommended them highly.

iMovie can do for movies what iPhoto can do for pictures. Fix lighting, rotate & crop movie segment, image stabilize, color correct and enhance images like "Final Cut Express" as well as normal editing features. Creates .m4v files which QuickTime and iTunes can handle. This version requires an Intel Mac!

iPhoto has added Faces & Places. Places uses geo tags for location if available. Faces searches for faces in photos and organizes them. Have to manually, go/nogo on many pictures.Can publish photos to Flickr & Face book via Link provided. Picture editing is improved. Doesn't need "PhotoShop" anymore!

iWork has added more themes in "KeyNote". "Pages" has more templates and can mail merge with "Numbers", not just address book. Not too good with making lables however. "Numbers" is great for formatting tables.

Discussed Fire Wall settings for System X for security.

Tried to set up Video Conferencing with several laptops but couldn't. UB wireless firewall may be the problem.

Demo'd the popular Face Book social network. 

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General Meeting Thursday. February 19, 2009

Secretary Carl Ohsiek gave some preliminary details for the Spring Dinner at Family Tree Restuarant on Thursday

April 16, 2009. The Documents for Treasurer's Audit for 2008 were given to Mark Adams. He did the Audit for 2007.

Mark Pierro hasn't gotten iWork09 yet. Will review this in March.

Mark Pierro demonstrated "Layers" program from Screen Forensics, layersapp.com @ $20 This is like taking a "Screen Shot" but each screen element is saved as a separate layer. The layers can be edited using PhotoShop. PhotoShop Elements can also do limited editing of these layers.

Mark Pierro demonstrated MacJournal which is now a commercial program @ $35 from Mariner Software. It can save almost any type of info into "journals". Data, sound clips, iTunes stuff, iPhoto and iMovie also. Individual journals can also be "locked" & encrypted.

Mark Pierro showed "Rapid Weaver" a theme based web design program. More powerful than iWeb and easier to use than Dream Weaver. The themes take care of page look, fonts & colors etc. Cost is $79. A companion program RW MultiTool adds more themes.

Also demo's several "widgets", iStepPro @ iSlayer.com, Giantmike.com, harmonica Also 10 Maintenance tips for Mac.

Finished up with a Q & A session.

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General Meeting Thursday, January 15, 2009

President Steve Heider led a discussion on the future of the Club. Do we still want to have Spring & Fall Parties & a Summer Picnic, all of which lose money because of prizes and ProBuck subsidies. Those present wanted the Parties to continue but didn't need prizes, raffles and Club Subsidies. The Board will take this under consideration.

Jim Gordon made a motion to pay the Reservation Fee for the Summer Picnic now and decide later on having it. This allows us to pick the date & Shelter we want. The Board will take this also under advisement.

Steve Heider told us briefly about his recent experience with Buff Net ISP going out of business and his switching over to Verizon FIOS.

Mark Pierro recommended we review Pages/iWork next month when the latest '09" version is available.

Mark Pierro gave an overview of PhotoShop Elements. This is basically PhotoShop "Lite". He Demo'd a few features for "Auto Fixing Images", Photo Merge for Panoramic views and Groups to "Mix" faces from several images to make one "perfect" one.

Jim Gordon talked about and showed a new Microsoft "Free Beta" web site for collaboration on documents by several people. He is using this site to collaborate with another author in India on the book he is writing.

He also talked a bit about System X 10.6 "Snow Leopard". It will only work on Intel CPU machines and it will take advantage of multiple CPU's in the computer.

We had a Question & Answer Discussion period.

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Holiday Party @ The Red Mill Restaurant November 20, 2008

A good time was had by all. The addition of several books acquired by our Vendor Liason, Jim Gordon to the Door Prizes allowed

almost everyone to take home a prize! The Flip Video Ultra Camcorder Raffle was a success. The Raffle Ticket Sales

were great. The Pork & Haddock Dinners were excellent as usual. This year we had excellent Prime Rib so everyone enjoyed the meal. All in all a very enjoyable evening.

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General Meeting Thursday, October 16, 2008

Carl Ohsiek discussed the upcoming Fall Dinner Party on November 20th & passed out Party Flyers to all present. They will also be mailed out to the membership shortly.

Steve Heider, Nominations Chair, presented the slate of candidates for the Annual Election.

President Open

Vice President Mark Pierro

Treasurer Bruce Kreitner

Secretary Carl Ohsiek

Board Member Terry Cycon

Motion to accept the slate by Jim Gordon, Second by Irene Cycon and passed.

Mark Pierro thanked Steve Heider for being Nominations Chair.

The floor was then opened for any furthur Nominations.

Al Harriman placed Steve Heider's name for President, second by Jim Gordon

There were no other nominations.. The revised slate was voted on and passed.

Steve Heider gave some comments about the Club & it's future direction as he see's it.

Jim Gordon gave some updates on Apple Products and a video on the new MacBook.

System X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) is for Intel powered Computers only and will have Microsoft Exchange, 64 bit support for 64 terabytes of ram and multi core aware. It will operate faster and have faster graphics. System X 10.5 will be last upgrade for Power PC Computers.

Mark Pierro talked about his usage of the G3 iPhone. He uses it in place of his laptop for e-mail. The App Store is really big feature.

It doesn't support video iChat but can send pictures. He demo'd an App Store search and download of an application.

Maark Pierro showed the conversion of Appleworks Documents to iWork Pages & Numbers ones. Most translate OK but DataBase doesn't unless you first save it as a "generic" file.

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General Meeting Thursday, September 18, 2008

Jim Gordon showed a video on Elections & Voting to Prepare us for our Election at next months meeting Oct 16, 2008.

Meeting was called to Order at 7:20PM. Carl Ohsiek presented a proposed change to the Board of Directors. Currently there

are 4 Officers (Pres. V.Pres, Sec & Treas) & 4 General Directors (based on number of members). The paid membeship has decreased

to 26 with a possibility of 8 more members in arrears. The proposal is to reduce the 4 General Directors to 3. The By-Laws state the number of General Directors is 10% of the Membership and can be increased or decreased by majority vote of the Board of Directors or vote by the membership. There was some discussion and Steve Heider voiced the opinion we should concentrate on increasing the membership and leave the number of general Directors alone. Carl Ohsiek made a motion to accept the Proposal which was passed.

Carl Ohsiek gave preliminary info on the Fall Dinner Party. Thursday, November 20, 2008 at The Red Mill Restaurant. Entrees are choice of Prime Rib, Pork Loin or Haddock at $20 per person. ProBucks can be used to reduce price to $15. He asked for some input on what to have for a Raffle Prize. Usually we have had an iPod Nano, but this time he suggested a Flip Video Camcorder. We showed a video of the new iPod Nano and also the new Flip Ultra Video Camcorder. We also showed a video of the recent ProMac Picnic which was taken using an older Flip video Camcorder. The vote turned out to be equal for each!

Jim Gordon talked about plug in wireless cards that could replace failed internal laptop cards at lower cost and better service.

Jim showed a video on the new iPod touch and iTunes 8. He also did a demo on YouTube usage for up load and download and a general "walk-thru". He also reviewed an add on to Firefox browser to work with You tube for Fast Video Download.

Jim showed a video of Deke McClelland Podcast on video editing using LAB Photoshop.

The floor was opened to discussion and questions. There was a Raffle of books on MicroSoft Office and Adobe Photoshop.

 

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ProMac Summer Picnic & Swap Meet Sunday July 20, 2008

Despite the "Monsoon" rains, 18 brave souls attended the Picnic. It cleared up enough for all to enjoy the char broiled hot dogs, baked beans, salads

and various desserts. There were bargains at the Swap Meet. The Mini Auction had some lively bidding (silent type) with the items going for good

prices. Everyone had a good time, plenty to eat and many came away with bargains!

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General Meeting Thursday June 19, 2008

Essential tips & tricks: keeping your Mac healthy, different ways to backup and protect data, cool keyboard tricks, the best external hard drives and more.

Demo: Rapidweaver - a simple but powerful web authoring tool.

Demo: Anxiety - keeps task functions in iCal and Apple Mail in a handy window, visible when you need it.

Plus the usual Apple Hot news and Jim Gordon's comments.

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General Meeting May 15, 2008

Jim Gordon reviewed more Mac World Brochures he brought back.

He advised against upgrading Microsoft Office to 2008. The 2004 version has support

for Virtual Basic while 2008 version doesn't. Could also use Neo Office.

New computers are very fast but the New Programs don't seem much faster! Very few Programs are multi-core and multi thread aware.

Graphic Converter is about the only one one that is able to take full advantage of the multi core & multi thread capabilities.

Leopard update 10.5.3 is due out soon

Mark Pierro demo'd some useful tips from Leopard.

He also demo' some password handling programs. Keychain is part of the operating system and quite useful.

1 password is a shareware program (1passwd.com) for $35 that we saw a good video about.

Another program is Pastor which is a password DataBase.

Several good books were raffled off to lucky attendee's!

 

NO Meeting in March due to Easter Week and Spring Breaks

NO Meeting in April due to the Spring Fling Party

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Thursday April 17, 2008 was the Spring Fling Dinner Party at the Family Tree Restaurant.

23 people came and had FUN and all had a good time and good food. Half of them won door prizes!!

 

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General Meeting February 21, 2008

Carl Ohsiek handed out Preliminary Flyers for the Spring Fling Dinner Party.

Date is April 17, 2008; Location is the Family Tree Restaurant.

He also announced there would be a ProMac Family Picnic on Sunday,

July 20, 2008 at Ellicottt Creek Park, Shelter #9.

Jim Gordon gave his impressions of Mac World 2008. It was twice as big as in 2007.

More info can be found at www.macworldencore.com.

His favorite program at MacWorld was Perian 1.1. This is a Quicktime plugIn that with

Flip4Mac allow just about any type file to be handled by Quicktime.

A question from the floor asked how to edit Video & Audio Tracks to get them "In Sync".

Apple's Final Cut Studio which is less expensive than Final Cut Pro for video & audio editing was discussed.

Jim Gordon was impressed with www.YouTube.com and demo'd varios aspects of the Site.

He Demo'd an application named Tooble (www.tooble.tv) which can take YouTube Files and convert them into mp4

and puts then into iTunes to download to an iPod automatically.

He also discussed multiplayer online game simulations. He Demo'd one (www.eve-online.com) with a Trailer

that showed the advances in graphics and sound.

Advances in Technology was also shown by Light Scribe Pen that "wrote" on digital paper, containes a camera, microphone,

and was actually a miniature computer.

Door Prizes given out were an Adobe Photoshop CS3 Manual and Quicken 2008 Manual by O'Reillly Media

and a Mac iLife 2008 Manual by Peachpit Press.

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General Meeting January 17, 2008

A Review of the Mac World 2008 Keynote announcements was discussed.

Some of the features of Leopard (System 10.5) were demonstrated by Mark Pierro.

A live link-up to Jim Gordon at MacWorld was attemped but was only partially successful. MacWorld photos at his web site were availlable however.

A couple of shareware programs were demo'd by Mark Pierro.

2 excellent books were given away at this meeting

"Soundtrack Pro 2" by Sitter

Sound for Picture in Final Cut Studio and Logic Studio

"Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard" by Robin Williams

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Holiday Party @ The Red Mill Restaurant November 15, 2007

A good time was had by all. The addition of Apple Branded items to the Door Prizes allowed

everyone to take home a prize! The iPod shuffle & iPod Nano Raffle was a hugh success. The Raffle Ticket Sales

were unbelievable! The "mini" Auction was a success. Great bargains were had by the Auction winners. The Pork

& Haddock Dinners were excellent. Unfortunately some of the Steaks were "over done" but the restaurant

replaced them with excellent Prime Rib so that also had a happy ending. All in all a very enjoyable evening.

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General Meeting October 18, 2007

The election for board members and officers was held at our October meeting.

Steve Heider presented the Slate for 2008.

President - Mark Pierro

Vice President - Bruce Kreitner

Treasurer - Carl Ohsiek

Secretary - "Still Open"

Board Member - Irene Cycon 2 year

Board Member - James Stack 2 year

Board Member - Tom Szumla (1 year to fill final year of Paul Nicol)

 

Continuing Board Member - Terry Cycon

 

Floor was opened for Nominations. There were none.

Jim Gorden moved to accept the Slate.

Larry Southwick seconded.

Motion Passed 16 Members + 2 proxie total 18 Members voted.

 

Mark Pierro talked about OS 10.5 Leopard and reviewed new features

Mark Pierro demo'd VMware Fusion. Another means of running alternate OS's on the Intel Mac.

Jim Gordon talked about Quicktime and demonstrated how several programs use Quicktime as their "Engine". Notably iTunes and iMovie. QuickTime Pro has many formats for converting files. Every voting member received a QuickTime Reference Book

 

Several Books on Mac OS 10.4 Tiger, Maya and PhotoShop were raffled off.

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General Meeting September 20, 2007

 

Mark Pierro & Jim Gordon gave a Demo of iLife 08 mainly the new features of iPhoto & iMovie.

Jim Gordon Demonstrated how to back up your hard drive using System X Disk Utility.

The ProMac Holiday Party Details were given. Date is Thursday November 15, 2007 at The Red Mill Inn, 8326 Main Street, Williamsville. Preliminary Flyer was given out by Carl Ohsiek. Dinner Choices are: Choice Sirloin Steak, Roasted Pork Loin with apple//cranberry compote, or Broiled Haddock with Lemon Dill. Price is $20/person & you can use $5 in ProBucks. There will be Door Prizes, Raffle of iPod's & a Mini Auction. Fun for All!!

Mark Pierro gave a Demo of iWorks 08. Pages is much improved as word proceessor/page layout program & Numbers is a creditable spreadsheet. A real bargain at $79

Getting into video requires an "input device"! Jim Pierro showed his digital camera with video capability and Carl Ohsiek showed his "pocket" sized inexpensive video camera. May not be High Def, but was very nice quality!

Jim Gordon held a Raffle of Books from Peachpit Press and other miscellaneous items. Every one went home with something!!

 

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General Meeting June 21, 2007

 

Carl Ohsiek announced there would not be General Meetings in July and August.

Also the Annual July Picnic had been cancelled due to poor attendence the last 2 years.

A July Dinner Party had been discussed by the Board but decided to have it in the Fall, possibly in October.

 

Steve Heider gave a Demo of Mathmatica. Used recorded audio sounds and imported them into Mathmatica which calculated the waveform and generated plots. He also showed how equations can be plotted and the variables changed showing the changing plots in real time. No programming is required as Functions are built into the program. Steve also showed how to create your own functions.

 

Jim Gorden gave update on WWDC 2007. Talked about iPhone and "Leopard" System X 10.5. Jim showed several video demo's from the Apple Web Site about features in "Leopard".

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General Meeting May 17, 2007

 

Jim Gordon gave some info on Apple being "Green". Apple is reducing many contaminants in product & process.

Also a recycle program for schools (25 computers or more) that expires June 30, 2007.

 

Survey of attendee's indicated people not using digital camcorders & cameras with iMovie/iDVD. This looks to be a good future Meeting Topic. Jim Sartori showed a DVD he made using iMovie of a vacation trip to illustrate this.

 

Door Prizes were 3 Manuals, iMovie missing manual series, "say no to Microsoft" & Quick Time Pro Training series.

 

Jim Gordon showed new Microsoft program Beta "SilverLight" a browser plug-in that is Universal/cross platform.

 

Mark Pierro did demo on iPhoto tips for v6 making photo greeting cards with editing tips.

 

Mark Pierro showed how to use iTunes cover/album art with downloads from Amazon or iTunes store.

 

He also showed an array of Dashboard Widgits & a Mac Maintenance Program "Onyx"

 

 

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General Meeting April 19, 2007

 

We watched a video About Hi Speed Network Hardware by David Pogue. Apparently getting high speed is not easy.

We watched a video comparing TiVo vs Cable boxes by David Pogue. Very close but TiVo had more features.

 

We watched a video on the new Apple TV by MacWorld - Opening the box and initial hookup.

We watched a video on the Apple TV part 2, operation and screen menus.

 

Mark Pierro gave a demo of Synergy, an iTunes plugin to give additional menu buttons for playing control

 

There was some lively discussion of the future of ProMac and what can be done to make the Club more meaningful.

 

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Thursday March 15, 2007 was the Spring Fling Dinner Party

28 people came and had FUN and all had a good time and good food. Half of them won door prizes!!

 

Click here to download the Spring Fling 2007 Flyer! Spring Fling 2007a.pdf

 

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General Meeting February 12, 2007

 

Dave Scotch gave a Demo of “Media Control” $29.95 which is an alternate to Apple’s “Front Row” software. You can enjoy full-screen music, photos, videos, and DVDs on your Macintosh. You can also use a remote control.

 

Mark Pierro gave a Demo of several Utilities for searching and organizing data on your Hard Drive. “WhatSize”, “GrandPerspective”, “LaunchBar”, “Butler”, and “Pasteboard”. These can be found on VersionTracker.com. They vary from Free to $29.95.

 

Jim Gordon Talked about a new cell phone service that gives high speed Internet Service to your computer. He has the phone but is waiting for some additional hardware to plug into the computer (Laptop). He says the $30 per month for unlimited service can compete with DSL and Cable service. When he gets the hardware he will give a Demo.

 

 

Date is March 15, 2007 at The Family Tree Restaurant on Bailey Ave at 6:30 PM.

 

Directions to UB can be found at http://www.buffalo.edu/buildings/building?id=clemens

 

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ProMac Membership Meeting January 18, 2007

We had 11 folks at the meeting, and a pretty good demo of DeltaGraph - it's very interesting how you can manipulate data! But the highlight was all the books that Jim brought back from MacWorld - he held a drawing for each of the items - there was way more than all of us there so some of us got 2 items (I got a filemaker 8 and a tiger missing manual).

 

We "voted" for no summer picnic/auction.

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ProMac Membership Meeting November 16, 2006

Al Harriman gave the results of the Election and that we still need a Secretary.

President: Mark Pierro

Vice Pres: Bruce Kreitner

Treasurer: Carl Ohsiek

Secretary: OPEN

Board Member: Paul Nicol

Board Member: Terry Cycon

 

The Board has explored some options for a Winter/Spring Dinner Party. Probably March 15, 2007

Family Tree Restaurant:

Up to about 25 people can use the Meeting Room and order off the Menu with separate

checks.

 

25 to 52 people can use the Meeting Room and choose from 3 entree's off the Banquet

Menu @ $16.25 (includes tax & tip) per person. Need a firm commitment a few days earlier.

 

Protocol Restaurant

30 & up people in a Private Room with an excellent Buffet @ $21.30 (includes tax & tip) per person.

Need a firm commitment & Money 1 week earlier.

 

Note: Just about every other Restaurant requires 40 - 60 people for a Buffet @$16.95 PLUS tax & tip per person!

 

Mark Pierro demo'd making a Podcast with GarageBand and then using iWeb to publish it on his .Mac website.

He also showed some SpotLite shortcuts and examples of how to use Automator.

Jim Gorden gave Apple News update. Also showed some "OnLine" reviews of Microsofts new Zune MP3 player.

Most were not at all impressed! Even the Pro PC people were critical.

Jim Demo'd the new Apple Mac Pro 3G 4CPU computer his UB Dept just acquired. Also showed it running VISTA

using Parallels VM Software.

 

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ProMac Membership & Annual Election Meeting October 19, 2006

Due to the "October Surpprise" Storm The attendence at the Meeting was lower than expected.

There was some discussion on postphoning the Annual Election until the November Meeting.

Since there was a Quorum in attendence the Election was held. Nominationg Committee

Chairman Steven Heider presented the Slate. Position of Secretary was still open. Nominations

from the floor resulted in 3 names for the 2 open Board positions but none for Secretary.

The Election Results were:

President: Mark Pierro

Vice Pres: Bruce Kreitner

Treasurer: Carl Ohsiek

Secretary: OPEN

Board Member: Paul Nicol

Board Member: Terry Cycon

 

Continuing Board Members: Irene Cycon & James Stack

 

The remainder of the meeting was mostly about the Storm with pictures taken by Mark Pierro

& Jim Gorden. There was some computer related discussions also.

 

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ProMac Membership Meeting September 21, 2006

Jim Gorden described new products and News from Apple.

Also gave updates on the new System X coming out in 2007 “Leopard” See www.apple.com

Jim Stack recently bought a new Apple wireless Mighty Mouse.

He demonstrated the Installation via Bluetooth and the features of this new Mouse.

Jim Gorden has a Bluetooth Cellphone and showed how to transmitt pictures to the computer.

The installation on the computer was similar to the Mighty Mouse and used the same Preference Files.

Mark Pierro demonstrated two screen capture “Donation Ware” programs. “SnapNgrab” and “Capture Me”.

Both are available for download on www.VersionTracker.com

The PodCasts in iTunes and the iLife tips were postponed until the next Meeting so that we could have

some “Discussion and interactive time”.

 

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A note from John Doughtie about the iTunes and iPod SIG meetings:

I expect to be having surgery soon. Therefore, I am suspending the

SIG until next February.

 

If you are interested in participating in this SIG at that time,

please send me an e-mail.