Bobbie’s Comments...

I am writing my newsletter in a different way this month. Most everything I have written about works for all Mac users no matter what system you are using.

If you want information on what happened at the last meeting go to the Secretary's page and read all about it..

I apologize for not getting a newsletter out in Dec: Between having foot surgery again and many runs to, two different doctors this month and of course trying to take care of business at hand and the Christmas season I decided I could not bring myself to stress out, so thank you for being so kind about it with you e-mails...

Give Your Mac Some Breathing Room
The electronic innards of your Mac produce heat as a natural byproduct of operation. While most Macs contain ventilation fans, you can defeat their function if you crowd your Mac’s desk space. An overheated computer can cause system errors and reduce the life of your computer. To avoid fried silicon, avoid putting items directly against your computer.

For those of you who are stuck on something and need an answer....Let Apple Teach You
All of Apple’s knowledge base articles are available to help you.To take advantage of them, go to <http://kbase.info.apple.com/> and do a search on a keyword that applies to your problem

Here is a fun experiment... try it you won’t believe it..
While sitting down, lift your right foot off the floor. Make clockwise circles with the foot. When the foot is circling nicely, make a figure 6 with your finger in the air. Your foot will reverse and start moving in counter-clock wise circles, and there is nothing you can do about it.

Proper Capitalization stop yelling at you friends on the internet..
Regardless of your keyboard skill level, take the time to type in proper upper and lower case and to use capitalization properly. Use that little “shift” key at the appropriate time, and your projects will look great. This may seem like an elementary tip. However, you would be amazed (and horrified) at the number of written documents out there that are being produced by new computer users, people just learning to type, and those who don’t bother because they think it isn’t important. One of the quickest ways to identify one of these people is to see a letter from them in all capitals. (The second quickest way is to see all lower-case letters.) The document not only looks unprofessional, but childish. I can’t help but think when I see a document prepared in either fashion that the author doesn’t know any better, or is too lazy to do it right. If you spend any time in the online community, you will quickly find yourself chastised (sometimes not so nicely) if you persist in typing in upper-case only. UPPER CASE TYPE TYPICALLY IS RESERVED FOR MAKING A POINT OR FOR EMPHASIS, just as if one were raising their voice or shouting during normal conversation. How would you respond if someone was shouting at you all the time? Don’t you get that feeling with text set in all capitals? There is, of course, a more practical reason to do it right. Properly capitalized sentences are easier to read, due to the flow of the characters. A document reads easier when a sentence is picked up by the eye by not only a sentence ending punctuation mark, but also by the capital letter starting the next sentence. If you don’t believe it, try reading the following rapidly:

INTRODUCING POWER MACINTOSH. IT’S MORE POWERFUL THAN A
PENTIUM PROCESSOR-BASED PC. IT’S MORE HUMAN THAN A MACINTOSH. IT’S THE MOST POWERFUL LINE OF PERSONAL COMPUTERS IN THE WORLD. Introducing Power Macintosh. It’s more powerful than a Pentium processor-based PC. It’s more human than a Macintosh. It’s the most powerful line of personal computers in the world.

If you need to add emphasis to a portion of your document, set it in bold type. This stands out to the eye, is easily located on the page, and retains the flow and readability of properly capitalized type. All capitals can also be properly used in either section headings or title lines. These are intended to get the reader’s attention, or to act as markers for the reader to find a new section of the document. Take the time and effort to use capitalization properly. It is one more of those “little things” that can make a big difference.

Change Formatting
I love this. You have type formatted in Georgia 12 plain text and some more text formatted in Arial 18 point bold. To reformat the Georgia 12 plain text as Arial 18 bold, highlight the Arial 18 bold text. Click Command/Option/C. Now highlight the Georgia 12
plain text and click Command/ Option/V. The type formatting changes. This works in many Cocoa applications (Text Edit). For Stickies, use Command/3 and Command/4 instead. You can do the same thing with paragraph formatting.

Tips for Archiving on CD-Rs
MacInTouch.com has an ongoing discussion of how to ensure the long-term reliability of your recorded CDs (CD-Rs). Many readers agree that name brand makes a difference. The best archival brands we know of are Verbatim, Maxell, TDK, Mitsui, and Taiyo Yuden. Verbatim’s DataLifePlus CD-R media is particularly worthy of trust: it has a 100-year life expectancy, which has been confirmed by accelerated aging tests. One source of good advice is “The 7 Fatal Mistakes People Make When Burning Data, Music or Photos to CDs,” a free, 91- page white paper in PDF format, available at <http://www.cdsleeves.com/7fatalmistakes.html.>
Some highlights:
• Sunlight can ruin a CD-R in as little as 2 hours; UV light damages the dye.
• Sharpie markers may ruin a CD over time. Use TDK’s CD Mark marker instead ($5 for four).
• Paper labels are not proven to last, the adhesives MAY eat into the CD over time, may partially come off, and may jam slot-loading CD drives.
• The top of a CD is more vulnerable to scratches than the bottom.
• Hard cardboard mailers provide the best protection for a CD, but cost more to mail. More tips area available at: <http://www.itl.nist.gov/> More info: many “brands” are simply CDs bought from a variety of manufacturers, then “branded” with the name of the company you buy them from. The least expensive discs are most certainly this way. If you want to check your CDs to see if they are beginning to fail, try using the free CD-R Scanner utility, available at <www.SacraSoft.com>.

Problem Solving
Are things going wrong? One of the first things to try is to trash the preferences file for the problem application. They are found under Users > username > Library > Don’t worry when you reboot they will replace themselves..

Googling for Beginners
I was staggered to read recently that someone has written a book about searching for information using the Google search engine. The great thing about Google is precisely that it’s so simple to use and provides such good results without extraordinary effort, and I can only conclude that the author’s search needs are much more sophisticated than mine. Still, there are two “tricks” I use to help with my searches (they’re actually the only ones I know) that I think are worth passing on. Firstly, keep phrases together by using quote marks (inverted commas). If you enter indian tiger as your search words, you’ll get a whole lot of references that deal with India but not tigers, and with tigers but not India. If you enter “indian tiger” however, all the references will indeed refer to Indian tigers. Secondly, use the “minus sign” to indicate terms that are not of interest. I recently entered “cake icing” as a search term, only to be overwhelmed by references centered on the Wiggles! That was easy to fix by searching for “cake icing”- wiggles. Those are the only tricks I’ve ever needed to use Google effectively, apart from the obvious one — the more search words you use, the more you’ll narrow down your search, and the more likely the results are to be useful.

Check Your Internet Speed
If you want to know how fast your internet connection REALLY is, go to <http://bandwidthplace.com/ speedtest> and click Start a Test.

Missing Manuals
What if you lost a manual for your KitchenAid mixer? Or your Aiwa car audio? Or your Apple iPod? Go to <http://www. instructionsheets.com/mfg/a.htm> and find almost any manual you want. Many are in PDF format.

Address Book
Back Up the Address Book
1. Open Address Book
2. File menu “Back up Database”
3 SAVE (onto the desktop).
4. Copy THAT onto a CD.

How Fast Do You Read?
http://mindbluff.com/askread.htm

Mac Joke for the month..

Buy A Mac

I was just having a conversation with someone who is about to buy a Mac. I was against it and an argument started. I said there were too few people supporting the Mac.

He responded, "When was the last time you heard of a virus on a Mac?"

And I said "See, even people who write viruses don't support Macs."

What's the difference between a MacIntosh and an Etch-A-Sketch?

You don't have to shake the Mac to clear the screen.

There are three engineers in a car; an electrical engineer, a chemical engineer and a Microsoft engineer. Suddenly the car just stops by the side of the road, and the three engineers look at each other wondering what could be wrong.

The electrical engineer suggests stripping down the electronics of the car and trying to trace where a fault might have occurred. The chemical engineer, not knowing much about cars, suggests that maybe the fuel is becoming emulsified and getting blocked somewhere.

Then, the Microsoft engineer, not knowing much about anything, comes up with a suggestion, 'Why don't we close all the windows, get out, get back in, open the windows again, and maybe it'll work !?' "This little computer," said the sales clerk, "will do half of your job for you."

Studying the machine, the senior VP said, "Fine, I'll take two."

If Microsoft built cars you would need to restart your car, then it would perform illegal operations and crash.

What do Microsoft and a halter top have in common?
Both offer very little support!

There was once a young man who, in his youth, professed a desire to become a "great" writer. When asked to define "great" he said "I want to write stuff that the whole world will read, stuff that people will react to on a truly emotional level, stuff that will make them scream, cry, wail, howl in pain, desperation, and anger!"

He now works for Microsoft writing error messages.