September 8, 2008 Final Cut Express
Our own Dave Strom will present an introduction
to Final Cut Express, a $200 video editor from Apple that lets you edit video
on a more professional level than iMovie, which Dave entertainingly demo'd
last year.
"How to convert video to different formats using QuickTime Pro and MPEG Streamclip (and any other software or methods I might find in the next week).
"If time permits, an overview of macinstruct.com. A website with how-tos, columns, and guides about the Macintosh. I wrote a few how-tos on there myself."
Plus we'll have a demonstration from Dave Aston on how to get your own freeware and shareware, our usual raffle of interesting computer-related literature, and more.
August 11, 2008 Bento
Note the date! It's a week later than usual owing
to events at SLAC the first week of the month. Geoff Schuller from Filemaker
will be here to present the popular more user-friendly consumer version of
their database software. If you think find e.g. Address Book somewhat inadequate
but don't need the full capability or expense of Filemaker, this could be the
Contact software for you - plus it does a pile of other things, too - inventories,
calendars, projects and more......
July 7, 2008 Building websites with iWeb & Dreamweaver
Steve Bellamy demonstrates how to
build websites the simple way using Apple’s iWeb (part of the iLife suite)
and more complex sites using Dreamweaver. We look at the SMUG website
(built using Dreamweaver) and consider ways we might change or improve it. We’ll
be giving away a number of website-building manuals to help those keen to go
off and experiment with your own sites.
Dave Strom briefly demonstrates Notebook by Circus Ponies, project management software to help organize the clutter on your virtual desktop - and he’ll be giving away a copy too.
Owing to a previous meeting in the
Redwood Room that is not scheduled to end until 6:30, the SMUG meeting
on Monday July 7th will be starting at 7PM rather than 6:30. Many apologies for the late notice.
Revised schedule will be as follows:
7-7:15 Q & A
7:15-7:45 Shareware
7:45-8 Break
8-8:15 Notebook demo by Dave Strom
8:15-9:15 iWeb & Dreamweaver demo by Steve Bellamy
9:15-9:45 Q & A, Raffle
June 2, 2008 Microsoft Office 2008
Nadine Mielke takes us through the first version
of Microsoft Office for the Mac since 2004 - updated for Intel Macs and with
a host of new features, as well as some controversial missing aspects compared
to the old version.
May 5, 2008 Derrick Story
O'Reilly's Digital Media Evangelist returns to
the Redwood Room with many tips and tricks for improving our digital photography. More
on Aperture, iPhoto & who knows what else.
April 7, 2008 iLife
Sure, we've all dabbled in iPhoto,
and even maybe edited a few clips here and there inside of iMovie. However,
you can take your media to the next level by integrating all of the applications
in your entire iLife Suite! Shawne Benson, creative at the Apple Store
Palo Alto, will explore some of the major features of the latest iLife
bundle and how they all connect. She will start by showing how to take
iPhoto assets into iMovie. From there, we will take that content and send
it to Garageband. There we can implement some advanced audio editing techniques
for the footage. Afterwards, she will send that presentation to iWeb in
order to display her content over the net.
March 3, 2008 Reunion
Pat Burrow presents Reunion 9, the best-rated genealogy
software for the Mac, and will demonstrate some of the features that have
made this program so popular among family historians. Not only is Reunion
easy to use for data entry and report generation, it provides the family
researcher with useful tools for productivity. You can document, store
and display information about your family and show relationships in an
elegant, graphic form.
February 4, 2008 Slingbox & Storyist
Two presentations! Melvin Prasad brings us Slingbox,
endorsed by many tech journalists such as David Pogue.
Sling Media's first product, internationally acclaimed, Emmy award- winning
Slingbox™,
has literally transformed the way we are able to watch TV. The
Slingbox turns any Internet-connected PC or laptop, Mac, or
smartphone into your home television. That means you can watch TV
virtually anywhere in the world. And
he'll be giving one away to to a lucky SMUG member! Plus,
Steve Shepherd from Storyist Software will
be with us to show how it can help us to write our memoirs, filmscripts,
or even the next Great American Novel.
January 15, 2008 SMUG at Macworld
Board members Ric Smith & Dave Strom at the
Mac Users Booth on Opening Day.
It seemed bigger and more tiring than ever. The week started both well and badly - we had a great time at the Users Group booth but a lot of people were seriously fed up after waiting for an hour in the cold to get in. But as the week went on it became less crowded and more fun (you could actually get to talk to people). It seems there was less play stuff this year, more work-related software, except for the continued ubiquity of iPod skins - do we really need 30 companies selling these? The MacBook Air was, if not great, certainly cool. The AppleTV demo on the beautiful flat HD screens certainly made you lust to have both. There were fewer guests this year, too, it seemed, but David Pogue as usual was a standout, both on his "Talk show" and at the O'Reilly booth later that day - they probably need to have some guests to attract a younger crowd, like Kevin Smith last year. We had some great meetings with display vendors, many of whom were there not specifically to sell but to help us get better understanding of their products (the camera booths Nikon and Canon stand out in this regard). The coolest booth we visited was the Zap exhibit's electric car - not really an Apple-related product at all but we're not complaining!
January 7, 2008 Keeble & Shuchat Photography
Who, what were, are Keeble & Shuchat?
They've been a Palo Alto institution and resource for all things photographic
for as long as anyone can remember. This month SMUG member Edward Clark and
his colleagues Mary McPherson and Tony Donatello will be in the Redwood Room
to talk about who or what Keeble and Shuchat is, how it got started and what
they offer.
