SVMUG - Silicon Valley Mac User Group

iPlayMusic visits SVMUG on April 21, 2008

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 08:38:13 -0700

Have you ever wanted to play the guitar but never had a chance to take lessons? iPlayMusic now makes your Mac a guitar teacher. iPlaysMusic’s award-winning softwares are on DVDs that are designed for parents and children to learn guitar, play and sing together. Quincy Carroll, CEO of iPlayMusic, will be showing off their break through music instruction softwares. http://www.iplaymusic.com/

We are moved again, this month to the Beatles Conference room. (click for more info)

Jim Heid for March 17 meeting

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 17:02:22 -0700

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day to you!

Our meeting room keeps moving around, but we’re keeping the spirit of the day. From the green, green lands of Mendocino comes Macworld editor Jim Heid, here to talk about his new book “The Macintosh iLife 08”. We’ll take a look at the new stuff that iLife 08 offers, and see how these things can be used for more than you think! http://www.macilife.com

After that, SVMUG member Lynda Fudold gives us a follow-up from a previous meeting. She won a copy of Web-site creation software Sandvox a few months ago, and she’ll relate to us her experiences putting it to use.

We’ve moved for this month to the DeAnza theatre.

Drobo Demo at Feb. SVMUG Meeting

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 07:35:14 -0800

Data Robotics demo’s Drobo for the Feb. SVMUG Meeting. What is Drobo? Drobo keeps data safe by automatically monitoring and repairing problems that could put data at risk. It controls all aspects of storage management without any configuration or management consoles. Drobo hand down is the better back up solution than external drives and RAIDs. See why you need Drobo.

Date: Feb 18, 2008, Time: 7:00 AM. Location: Apple Town Hall on the Apple Campus in Cupertino, CA.

Jan 2008 Meeting: 2 Meetings in One! Bento & TopXNotes

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 17:23:13 -0800

2 Meeting In One: Bento & TopXNotes

The SVMUG January 21, 2008 meeting will features two vendors! It is time to organize you life…

Learn all about Bento, the new personal database by FileMaker that organizes all your information in one place. Designed specifically for Mac OS X Leopard, Bento helps manage your contacts, coordinate events, track projects, prioritize tasks, and more. You’ll get answers to questions such as: What is Bento? Who should use Bento? How are people using Bento? What are the differences between Bento and FileMaker Pro?

Want another way to organize your life? Tropical Software will be showing “TopXNotes”, a popular note organizing system for Mac. Tropical Software will also be showing their latest application “TopXNotes iPod”.

December 17 brings the SVMUG potluck!

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 11:10:52 -0800

Yes, we are still holding a meeting, even while details on the meeting seem to be changing on a daily basis. Apologies to everyone for the incredibly short notice!

We ARE holding a meeting… tonight!

Our room has moved… we’re in the Garage conference rooms, upstairs from Town Hall.

Our vendor has changed… Karelia Software had to cancel, but they are still offering some raffle items. Some of our members will be showing their favorite software instead. (This can include you! If you have an application or utility you can’t live without, we want to hear about it! Bring it in, and we’ll give you the stage!)

November 19, 2007

Wed, 21 Nov 2007 05:04:52 -0800

Silicon Valley Macintosh User Group: Nov 2007 meeting

We will be showing Leopard: Nick Brazzi, from the Palo Alto Apple store.

Introducing new members. We have a couple.

We hope to have Jim Heid do a video iCHat here, and in-person at a later meeting.

We are doing regular Q&A. Also vendor Q&A and we will pick the forms and hand it to the vendor.

And we will then finish up and wrap up.

Dave Strom is taking notes.

Introduction of volunteers; talk to us if you want to do so.

NEWS AND RUMORS

Leopard is now out. A guy was 5th in line; the gal bedside him had her MacBook out and the net went out (power was gone), emergency lighting and remote credit card terminals still worked. Another was 200th in line at Emeryville. He left at about 6:45; they still had about 50 t-shirts left. Time machine (as of then) did not work over Airport Extreme. It was a mob; a lot lined up at the checkout counter. He feels he has 6 or 7 clients who should have it. Another at Valley Fair; the line there was pleasant. There is a We Fix Macs at Valley Fair, and they also handed out t-shirts. There seemed to be Mac entrepenuers working the crowds. (Gamers, repairs, etc.) We Fix Macs near Macys at Valley Fair (well, there when one of us saw it). If you want warrenty work, maybe an Apple store would be better.

Do you have Leopard?

Sun, 18 Nov 2007 11:52:00 -0800

Already bought it, already using it.

63% (17 votes)

Bought it, but haven't installed it yet.

15% (4 votes)

Buying soon!

11% (3 votes)

Now I can buy that new Mac with Leopard on it!

7% (2 votes)

I'll stick with my current Mac OS version.

4% (1 vote)

Total votes: 27

Leopard stalks our Nov 19 meeting!

Sun, 18 Nov 2007 11:31:40 -0800

It’s November, and after some last-minute wrangling we have our meeting lined up!

People from the Palo Alto Apple Store will be here to show us… Ta Da! Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard Check out the new Time Machine backup system, see Spaces, Stacks, Quicklook, BootCamp, improved apps…. over 300 new and notable features! We may also spend some time with iLife 08 and iWork 08.

Meeting is Monday night November 19, at 7:00 pm at Apple Inc.’s Town Hall theatre, 4 Infinite Loop, Cupertino. Meeting is free! For directions, see the Location link in the upper right corner of the svmug.org homepage.

spam users

Sat, 17 Nov 2007 17:38:54 -0800

We’ve had a large number of new users on the site recently, mostly generated by spammers. In reaction, we’ve disabled a lot of users’ accounts, and we’ve deleted some accounts outright.

Since it may not have been expressed on this site before, this is a good time to state our posting policy.

We are a non-profit user group focused around Macintosh and Apple Inc. While we do try to encourage community discussions on a number of topics, we generally limit the postings to materials that are either relevant to the group and its interests, or are non-commercial in nature.

If you post materials that are commercial and are not relevant to the group, then your account may be disabled. If your account is disabled, you can send a message to gousha@svmug.org appealing this, and we can restore your account.

If you include offensive material in your postings or profile, then your account is subject to immediate deletion.

October 15, 2007

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 16:03:14 -0700

SVMUG Meeting - October 15, 2007

Moderator: Charles Gousha

New People

-- Francis - moved to Silicon Valley in June - joining the group now - found us in the Apple user group listings.

-- Vinny - just checking us out - see what is up.

News and Events

iMac freeze problem - Apple acknowledges the problem and will resolve it before the end of this month. Apparently 10.4.10 is a problem for G5 iMacs. The ATI graphic drivers may be at fault.

Leopard is expected to ship in October. However, no definite word yet. Some rumors said the GM candidate is ready. Other rumors say to expect it on Friday, October 26.

SmileOnMyMac demos PDFpen at October 15, 2007 Meeting

Tue, 09 Oct 2007 17:09:21 -0700

Learn how to easily edit and manipulate PDF files with PDFpen from SmileOnMyMac. With this affordable tool, you can add text, images, and signatures; fill out forms; combine and split PDFs; reorder and delete PDF pages. You can even correct text and move or resize images.

Philip Goward, co-founder of SmileOnMyMac and developer of PDFpen, will give a demonstration of PDFpen’s powerful PDF editing features. He’ll also give an overview of the rest of the SmileOnMyMac product line, including DiscLabel and TextExpander.

Meeting Date: Monday, Oct. 15, 2007. Time 7:00 PM. For location: Apple Campus in Cupertino, CA.

Google Guide visits SVMUG on Sept 17, 2007

Wed, 05 Sep 2007 18:31:43 -0700

Nancy Blachman from Google Guide visits SVMUG on Monday, September 17, 2007.

Google is so easy to use, why attend this presentation? If you’re like many people, you use only a small number of Google’s services and features. Learn how to go beyond Google’s deceptively plain interface and take advantage of many shortcuts and underutilized capabilities. The more you know about how Google works and its capablities, the better it can serve your needs.

Meeting Location: Apple Campus, Cupertino, CA (see link on top right of SVMUG Home Page). Time: 7:00-9:30 PM. Room Location: Apple Town Hall.

VMWare Fusion and Centrify at Aug 20 meeting

Mon, 20 Aug 2007 10:53:16 -0700

Sorry for the late notice, folks!

August brings us a venture into the Windows world… sort of. There are a lot of Windows users and administrators out there, especially in business. If you want to work on Mac, often you have to work around - and with - Windows people.

So first we have VMWare here to talk about Fusion, the newest way to run Windows on your Intel Mac, from the guys who have been doing virtual machines for years!

http://www.vmware.com/beta/fusion/index.html

Then we have Centrify here to give us a short talk about software that allows company IT systems to manage Macs under Windows Active Directory. http://www.centrify.com/directcontrol/macosx.asp

Meeting is Monday night August 20, at 7:00 pm at Apple Inc.’s Town Hall theatre, 4 Infinite Loop, Cupertino. Meeting is free! For directions, see the Location link in the upper right corner of the svmug.org homepage.

Derrick Story at Stanford Macintosh User Group Monday Aug 6

Wed, 01 Aug 2007 19:33:42 -0700

Derrick Story is a professional photographer, writer, and instructor. He's authored "Digital Photography Hacks," "Digital Photography Pocket Guide, 3rd Ed.," and co-authored the popular series, "iPhoto: The Missing Manual" with David Pogue. Derrick's photo articles are a regular feature in Macworld Magazine.

He will be the speaker at the Stanford Macintosh User Group on Monday, August 6. The meeting starts at 6:30pm, and the speaker starts at 8.

http://www.pa-smug.org

Our monthly meetings are normally held at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC), 2575 Sand Hill Road, Palo Alto, CA. Meetings are usually in the Redwood Room.

http://www.pa-smug.org/about/slac.html#directions

Book Review: iPhone - The Missing Manual

Wed, 25 Jul 2007 13:57:20 -0700

Book Review: "iPhone - The Missing Manual"

reviewed by Robert Brown
July 25, 2007

This review is based upon a pre-release version, issued July 20, 2007, in a digital PDF format. A printed version is expected in August.

Title: "iPhone - The Missing Manual"
Author: David Pogue
Print History: August, 2007 First Edition
Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.™
Type: Non-fiction, technical, consumer electronics
Theme: essential information and user guide for the Apple iPhone™

292 pages.