Past Meetings
October 20, 2014 - Hammondsport Mac Users Group
ATTENDING : Tom B, Bob S, Dottie E, Al J, Nancy D, Michael B, George F.
TOPIC : GREAT DESIGN (A brief look at Apple devices, past, present and near future)
"Good design lies down and behaves"
We opened our meeting with a slide
show of 20 Great Moments in Apple History, beginning
with the original Apple computer and
concluding with the latest Apple
Watch.
1976
to 2014 
(Watch demo of rare working Apple I motherboard recently auctioned for $905,000)
SOME SUBTLE ASPECTS OF APPLE DESIGN
Packaging ( some fanatics even make videos of "the
joy of unboxing ")
Cursor - mouse/finger speed
on trackpad exponentially increases distance covered on display
NOTE: cursor size can be changed - go to System Prefs > Accessabilty > Cursor
size slide
Trackpad - one finger
tapping
Scroll Pad
- (two fingers) - Q: what caused the recent change in direction? A: the
iPhone and iPad scrolling
The pulsating 'Hal'
sleep light - waxing and waning (note that there is no opening for the light
to shine through!)
MBPro Unibody
sleep light (right front edge) and battery status (left edge on plug-in)
AC Power Adapter
(cord wrap, duck head, extension)
Apple TV and luxurious Remote
DID YOU KNOW?
- - - a copy of the U.S. Constitution can be found
on every Mac since 2001? Open the Dictionary application, then go to Dictionary
Menu > Go > Front/Back
Matter. Scroll down to find lots of interesting stuff.
- - - the story behind the
'X' in UI design? - first used in computer graphics in Windows 95 and Mac
OSX - inspired by NeXT (1988) - read the whole story here.
Hovering
over the Red Ball in a folder or application window produces an X
Works
same in new Yosemite but green now enlarges window to fill entire display
COM-SHIFT-4
key combo will take a picture of any part of your screen
Boot
Camp or Parallels enables
you to run pure WIndows OS on your Mac (if you
must). With Parallels, you can switch
from one platform to the other with a single click (see example Desktop).
Watch Apple video tutorial of how
to run Windows on Mac.
INTERESTING ARTICLES ABOUT APPLE DESIGN
4 Myths about Apple Design - Mark Kawano was a senior designer at Apple for seven years, where he worked on Aperture and iPhoto.
John Maeda (former president of Rhode Island School of Design) - how art, technology and design inform creative leaders
Jonathan Ive - the head Apple designer who brought you the iMac, iPad and now the Apple Watch - Vogue article
YOSEMITE
Apple's newest Operating System can now be downloaded for free (5.16GB) using App Store and your Apple ID - can be installed over 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard) through 10.9 (Mavericks) - read more about Yosemite's design.
OSX 10.10 Yosemite to launch Monday 10-20-14 - read John Sircusa's thorough review at arstechnica
What's New in Yosemite? - Gary of MacMost gives quick overview via video (6m45s) - very informative
How to Make Your Own Bootable USB Install DIsk for Yosemite - read article at arstechnica
APPLICATIONS
DIskmaker X - free app to make your own bootable install disk for Yosemite on 8GB USB (download 11MB) - requires 10.7 or up - or use the alternative Terminal code (almost as simple) described here.
DEMO
OWC 120GB HD ($35) + USB Express Silver Enclosure ($15) - using his 2010 MacBook Pro, Tom demonstrated how to boot up from an external HD on which he had recently installed Yosemite:
HELPFUL WEBSITES FOR TROUBLESHOOTING SLOW INTERNET
Test My Net - http://testmy.net/ - run a quick speed test (download/upload) for your current internet connection
Down Right Now - http://downrightnow.com/ - find out if your favorite website is currently operational or not
Is It Just Me? - http://www.isup.me/ - determines if the internet problem is with website or your computer
Public DNS Numbers - these numbers may be inserted into your Network Prefs to replace your current DNS numbers that were likely suppled by your Internet Service Provider (ISP) - this may solve reoccurring problems with drop offs and difficulty connecting to on-line web servers - read how here.
FUTURE MEETINGS
We plan to meet the first Monday of each month in the Hammondsport Public
Library at 10:30am.
Hammondsport Mac Users Group - Hammondsport, NY 14840 - www.hportmug.com