december 2009 maclanta

December Meeting AnnouncementAMUG & ATLANTA PC Users Group Holiday Party!December 16, 2008, Macquarium6:30 pm - Pot Luck Social7:30 pm - Q & A8:15 pm - Mac/PC Jeopardy! Yes, a rematch between the clubs to see who brings home the 2008 Atlanta User Group Trophy (YES, Trophy!)9:00 pm - Holiday Gift RaffleThis year we are happy to once again have our AMUG/Atlanta PC Joint Holiday Social. We will start off with a Pot Luck Social. We are asking everyone to please RSVP to this topic on what they would like to bring to the Pot Luck...it could be a main course item, hot side, cold side, dessert or beverages. We would like to prevent the notorious five kinds of potato salad from happening.This year we will have a rematch of the Mac/PC Jeopardy, hosted by our own Christina Wellman. To the winning team goes the An-nual User Group Trophy, which will be engraved with the name of the winner!To finish off the evening we will have our First Holiday Gift Raffle - We will have up for raffle colorfully decorated raffle items that people will get to pick from if they have their number called. Every item is a mystery as it WILL be wrapped! Each club will provide items to be raffled but we would like to ask for donations for raffle items as well. We ask that the items be new and in working order (no gag gifts please!).

MaclantaYour source for Atlanta area Macintosh news and information

Newsletter for the Atlanta Macintosh Users Group • December 2008

Since 1984www.amugonline.org

Inside This Issue

New dues structure & election results

Pg. 2

Quick Look is super Fast!

Pg. 3

Just out: A review of Parallels 4.0

Pg. 4

Dropbox: Sync files from the ‘cloud’

Pg. 5

March Meeting pre-view: Handy utilities

Pg. 6

Keyboard shortcuts: Get to know them

Pg. 7

Photoshop CS4 - Feb. meeting preview

Pg. 8

A Note To Our GuestsFounded in 1984, the Atlanta Macintosh Users Group is a not-for-profit Georgia corporation organized and operated exclusively for the purpose of providing edu-cation and assistance to its members in the use of the Apple Macintosh computer and software. We encourage you to join our community of Apple enthusiasts. You can either join online, at the information area prior to meetings, or by seeing our treasurer Adele Ward.

2 Maclanta • Atlanta Macintosh User Group • December 2008

About Maclanta Maclanta is published monthly by the Atlanta Macin-tosh Users Group, Inc.(AMUG™), Post Office Box 15130, Atlanta, Georgia, 30333-0130, a non-profit 501(c)(3) edu-cational organization, as a service to the membership. Subscriptions: Portions of a member’s dues in AMUG are designated for an annual subscription to Maclanta. Annual membership dues are $40. A separate subscription to this publication is available for a fee to be determined by the Newsletter Director. © Copyright 2008 by the Atlanta Macintosh Users Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Maclanta is an independent publication, not affiliated or otherwise associated with Apple Inc. or any other organization that might otherwise advertise herein. The opinions, statements, positions, and views stated herein are those of the author(s) or publisher and are not intended to be the opinions, statements, or views of Apple Computer, Inc. or any other organization that might advertise herein. Rather than place a trade-mark, copyright, or registered symbol at every occurrence, we hereby state that we are using the names only in an editorial fashion with no intention of infringement of the owners work. Nothing herein may be reproduced in whole or in part without the express written permission of the Newsletter Director or the President of the AMUG Board of Directors, with the following exceptions: all articles and/or graphics not under copyright by the author may be reprinted by a nonprofit organization provided proper credit is given to the author and Maclanta. Proper credit is defined as Title, Author, and the words ‘Reprinted with permission from [month ] [year ] of Maclanta, a monthly publication of the Atlanta Macintosh Users Group, Inc.’ Permission to reprint copyrighted articles and/or graphics may be obtained by writing to the author or artist, care of this publication. Submissions: Maclanta welcomes unsolicited articles (including feature stories, commentary, and user group news) pertaining to personal computers, hardware, soft-ware, related products, services, and end users. Submis-sions should be made via E-mail attachment or body in text format. Unless otherwise arranged, the deadline for all articles, letters, and illustrations is 5 p.m. the Friday after the 1st Tuesday of the month before the month of publication. The editors reserve the right to edit for brevity and clarity. Payment will be in the form of credit in Maclanta and cop-ies of the issue(s), at the least. AMUG Trademarks: AMUG and the AMUG peach are trademarks of the Atlanta Macintosh Users Group,Inc.

AMUG Board of DirectorsPresident .............................W. Michael HeniganVice-President .........................Martha ShannonTreasurer ............................................. Adele WardSecretary .......................................Wendell Dillon Education Director .......................................openMembership Director ........Christina WellmanNewsletter Director ....................... Todd DanielProgram Director ..........................................openPublicity Director ............................... Jim MinterTelecom Director .................... Lawrence Sharp

Our treasurer Adele Ward reports that the treasury contained $8619.60 in as-sets, which includes a fixed CD. Cost for the month were $212.26, which in-cluded bank charges, cyber, public stor-age, BellSouth, and Donate.net, which we use for credit card processing. Note that we have closed the public storage unit to reduce expenses.

AMUG Hotline: General Information line 404-327-9002

Atlanta Macintosh Users GroupPO Box 15130 • Atlanta, GA 30333-0130

www.amugonline.org

November Treasurer’s Report

A huge HAPPY BIRTHDAY goes to the following. May each of you get lots of Apple goodies: Robert Cameron (12/19) and Stanley Scott (12/27)

December Birthdays

Important Club News

New Dues Structure Proposal Passes

At the November general meeting, the membership approved a new, lower dues structure. The following prices go into effect Janu-ary 1, 2009:

Individual - $35HouseHold - $10Academic - $25Corporate - $90 (this is actually a reduction of $15 but for 3

members)

Membership elects 2009-2010 Officers

Congratulations goes to the following board members, who were elected at the November membership meeting:

Vice President - Martha ShannonTreasurer - Adele WardMembership Dir. - Christina WellmanPublicity Dir. - Jim Minter

Note that we still need two more nominees to fill the slate - can you help? Most of our board members have been holding two jobs, and we would really love for help on the board. Take the challenge and join the fun!

Board members not up for election this year include president, Michael Henigan, secretary, Wendell Dillon; telecom director, Lawrence Sharp; and newsletter director Todd Daniel.

3 December 2008 • Atlanta Macintosh User Group • Maclanta

November General Meeting - Extended Q&A and General Membership Meeting

The November meeting was a festive night with lots of candy and great door prizes. Lawrence led an extended Q & A session that covered some of the following topics:

• Dropbox• Codeweavers and Crossover for Office. Discussed

“bottles,” which store items needed to run a par-ticular Windows application.

• Cocktail - Used to clean up logs, repair permissions, diagnostics, etc...

• Apple Jack - Another application that repairs per-missions and much more.

• Permissions & Ownerships - Lawrence entered Terminal and explained the cryptic and mysterious world of permissions.

After the Q & A, President Mike Henigan opened the business portion of the meeting. He said the club’s storage shed was closed as a cost-cutting measure. Lawrence was recognized for his kindness in storing much of the club’s supplies at his house. Mike said the club was also going to shut off the AT&T phone number and use a much cheaper Skype account instead. He added that the club was looking at using PayPal to process credit cards, which would also cut costs.

The new slate of officers was then brought before the membership and approved by acclimation. Congratulations goes to the following elected officers:

•VicePresident-MarthaShannon•Treasurer-AdeleWard

Meeting ReportsGeneral meetings, SIGs, and more...

•MembershipDir.-ChristinaWellman•PublicityDir.-JimMinterMike noted that we still have two empty slots for mem-

bership director and program director. He said that the board may appoint individuals to fill these vacancies. If anyone is interesting in one of these jobs, please contact an AMUG board member.

Mike then presented a new dues structure, which will go into effect January 1. Under the new structure, dues will actually go down $5 across-the-board. The cost reduction is made possible because the newsletter is now electronic in-stead of print, which has eliminated one of the club’s major expenses.

Next, Mike reviewed the changes to the bylaws, which mainly involved a cleanup of the wording in membership categories, a change in term limit requirements, and the ability to now vote electronically. A vote was called and the new bylaws were approved by the membership.

In conclusion, Mike announced the upcoming holiday party, which will include a potluck dinner. He asked mem-bers to post on the forum what they plan to bring.

The meeting concluded with the door prize drawings. A congratulations to the several winners who won iTunes gift certificates and other goodies.

SIG News•Holiday Closings - There will be no SIGS in Novem-

ber and December due to proximity with the holidays. We will hit the ground running in January.

Quick Look is super FAST!By far, my favorite new feature in Leopard is Quick

Look, which saves me oodles of time each day. For those who don’t know, Quick Look allows you to quickly view any file on your computer. In the old days I would have to fire up clunky Photoshop every time I wanted to preview an image. Then, along came Apple’s Preview program, which is much faster than Photoshop, but still takes time to load. But Quick Look is fast, and I mean REALLY fast. To use Quick Look, simply select a document, right-click your mouse, and choose “Quick Look,” or hit the space-bar. Bingo, the image pops right up. If you want, you can send the image to iPhoto by touching a button at the bot-tom. But wait, there’s more! Drag your mouse over a group of images to select them and then hit the spacebar again —

now navigation buttons appear at the bottom of the win-dow and you can click through the images. Or you can hit the “Index Sheet” button to see all the images side-by-side on a single page. While most often used for images, Quick Look also works great with documents and PDFs. —Ed.


Todd DanielNewsletter [email protected]

The Newsletter Director Speaketh

By Todd Daniel, [email protected]

For some reason the thrill never dies. I enjoy using Paral-lels to open up Windows on my Mac computer. It’s sort of like making Windows a prisoner to the Mac, which is very satisfying. In terms of compatibility, the Mac plays with the PC world better than ever before, but there are still reasons why I need to run Windows on my Mac. At work, there are several applications and websites that I have to use, which simply won’t play with the Mac. The second reason is that when I work on a website, I need to test it in PC view. I’ve been a fan of PC virtualization software since the days of Virtual PC 5, and I upgraded to versions 6 and 7. While most of the bugs were worked out by version 7, Virtual PC was always PAINFULLY slow. Then, my dream came true — Apple switched to Intel processors, and before long there was Boot Camp, Paral-lels, VMware Fusion, and CrossOver Mac. After some research I chose Parallels, as it seems to be the best “all around” product. Just when I thought I reached nirvana, Parallels came out with version 4 last week. Like most mature prod-ucts, Parallels is starting to add bloatware and bells and whistles in a desperate bid to capture upgrade dollars. Nevertheless, I couldn’t turn down the $39 upgrade price, and I put down the money. Note that the special $39 rate is only good until December 31, then it goes up to $49. Since upgrading to 4.0, I have not been disappointed. The new version is now REALLY fast and smooth, and some of the quirks I experienced in the past are now

gone. I recommend this upgrade for any Parallels user. If you are a gamer, you’ll find that at long last, Parallels can support more sophisticated PC games, and it now supports DirectX 9.0. My daughter can hardly wait to try her new Sims game. A problem I had with the old Parallels is that even though the speed was okay, it drastically slowed down my open Mac applications. But 4.0 appears to be less of a resource hog. One area where the developer has made big improve-ments is in Coherence, which allows Mac and PC pro-grams to run side-by-side. However, that’s too emotion-ally stressful for me, so I don’t use this feature. For those who run Parallels on a laptop, you’ll ap-preciate the new energy-saving features. You can now optimize the power features for your virtual machine to get 20 percent more battery life. The only other thing I haven’t mentioned is that the disk management features have improved — very nice. If you do plan to upgrade, you’ll find the biggest hurdle is the upgrade itself. Parallels will need to upgrade your old virtual machine to the new format. This is going to take a while. First, it will ask if you want to back up your old virtual machine — say YES!!! As the software was clunking through the upgrade routine it told me I needed to reactivate my copy of Windows XP. Well, I did and everything froze up. What I learned is to let the program upgrade your virtual machine and THEN re-activate Windows.

This Month: Parallels 4.0 is out, and it’s great (that is, once you get it loaded)

The only downside to Parallels 4.0 is the upgrade process itself, which was long and a bit scary. When you are prompted to first back up your virtual machine, SAY YES!!!! (with my apologies to Nancy Reagan). top: Once you’ve upgrade you’ll be greeted with a new opening screen. right: The joy of Windows enslavement never ends.


Dropbox keeps track of changes made to any of its contents, and the changes are instantly and automatically sent to other computers linked to the Dropbox. The program is cross-platform and plays nicely with Windows, Mac, and Linux.

By Adele Ward, [email protected]

There is nothing so inspiring as writing about a pro-gram about which you have little experience but great hope. I am going to use this program for synchronizing photos that I upload to my iPhoto library.

At present, I attach my three cameras, one at a time, to my iMac, PowerBook G4, and Dell. I upload my new pho-tos to each one, one at a time. This is a big pain in the neck. I take lots of photos.

Richard, my husband, uses Dropbox to move Chinese language homework from one computer to another, across platforms. He has sent Chinese language files to classmates and sent photos to the kids. All files are automatically encrypted.

Dropbox does what Mobile Me is supposed to do, but bet-ter. The program is free as long as you do not use more than 2 GB of space. Dropbox has been around for a while but has new, more powerful abilities.

For more information, visit: www.getdropbox.com. There is excellent information at the site.

Also, please see: www.screensaveronline.com This is a video presentation; program number SC00171 - Dropbox. The host/producer is a British gentleman named Don McCal-lister. He does an excellent job of describing the program.

An associated program that you can enable is called Growl. It is a popup that tells you when there has been a change in your Dropbox. The dropbox icon stays in the sta-tus bar on a Mac.

One of the more interesting things we found out the hard way is that when one of us removed a file or photo from the Dropbox, it disappeared from all. On the Mac, holding down the opt key while dragging something from the Dropbox will make a copy and not remove it from the

Dropbox. I do not know which key to

hold down on a PC to get the same results.

If you have to send more than one pdf file, there is a program that combines them into one for easy transmittal through Drop-box. It is called Combine PDFs by Christian Schmitz, and is avail-able at http://www.monkeybread-software.de/.

Dropbox allows you to better manage filesNeeds to syncronize large files between multiple computers? Give Dropbox a try!

Discover the power of the iTunes Smart ListsThe Smart Playlists feature in iTunes is extremely pow-erful, and once you start using them you’ll never turn back. Here are my three favorite features of the Smart Playlists: •IenjoyputtingmyentiremusiccollectiononShufflemode. However, on occasion a podcast or music video pops up. To prevent this, create a Smart Playlist and for the first option say “Playlist” then “is” and then “Music.” •MyhabitoflisteningtomusicisthatI’llpurchaseanew song and then keep playing it until I’m sick of it. A Smart Playlist can accommodate this habit. I created a list called Recently Added and selected “Limit to ??? items selected by Most Recently Added.” Thus, as I add new songs to my collections, older ones are bumped off the list (make sure you select “Live Updating”). •Iamstartingtoclassifymymusicbymood.Forin-stance if I’ve had a bad day at work I want to play “AN-GER” music. Or sometimes I’m feeling “SPIRITUAL” or

sometimes I think about my ex-girlfriend from college and I want to hear “LOST LOVE” music (until my wife pops me in the back of the head). To do this, I simply enter a keyword in the comment field and create a Smart Playlist based on that word. — Ed. Cool feature alert: You can easily get the lyrics to your songs from the Internet. Add them in your song’s Info file and they’ll show up when you play songs on your iPhone or iPod touch — very nice!


In the last issue of Maclanta we gave you a sampling of Tom Baley’s program collection. That was just to peak your interest. In this issue we’re listing more of his collection, which he has graciously shared with us. Tom will be giving a presentation on his favorite utilities on March 17 — don’t miss this outstanding event!

From Tom Baley:Well, here’s a starter list. Not sure of the division of utili-

ties and applications, but what the heck. They are in alpha-betic order, but I starred my superstars. I wouldn’t think of using a Mac without them. Second tier = +. I find it inter-esting that I re-built my Mac two months ago, upgrading to Leopard at the same time, and these are the applications I have re-installed as I needed them. I still have another 100 applications and utilities on the old hard drive that I have not yet re-installed on the new drive. Many of those I know I would use daily.

My MacBook Pro hard drive is 500 GB and currently has only 46 GB free. When I upgraded it, I moved in my iTunes and iPhoto libraries and have started using Final Cut Pro. Boy, does that video suck up space! I am going to have to move that stuff off again, soon. Frys has 1 TB and 1.5 TB external drives now.

UTILITIES1PasswordAllBookmarksAudiobook BuilderDisk WarriorDropboxEvernoteFlip4MacFluidFuzzyClockMacTheRipperLittle SnitchMissing SyncQuicksilverSaftSugarSync+SuperDupeTechTool ProtogoVisualHubVLCWhat’s Keeping MeWhatSize

APPLICATIONSAperture*BBEdit+Bento+Final Cut Pro*iWork 08*iLife 08*MerlinMicrosoft Office*NovaMindOmni Focus, Graffle, Outline, Plan, Web+Quicktime Pro*VmwareFusion*

March Meeting Preview: Handy UtilitiesThomas Baley will lead presentation on favorite shareware utilities on March 17

Uncle Mac Wants You!

MacCollege Committee Forming The MacLanta Expo is a daylong experience that includes a series of classes designed to broaden knowledge about Macs, Mac programs, and how oth-ers use their Macintosh. Besides a day-long schedule of special classes, there are opportunities to meet with software and hardware vendors, get helpful answers to your questions, see the latest applications, chat with fellow Mac enthusiasts, bid for great prizes at our auctions, and much more. We are now forming a committee to plan the 2009 MacCollege. If you’d like to help, please contact Todd Daniel ([email protected], 678-567-2052).

Tom Baley will be sharing some of his favorite utilities from his massive collection at the March general meeting.


By Todd Daniel, [email protected]

The Mac operating system is loaded with dozens of shortcuts, and many are under used. If you get into the habit of using these handy commands, over the course of a day, week, or year you’ll save yourself a lot of extra hand motions and time.

My biggest challenge is remem-bering the ones I only use occasional-ly, and I often find myself just using the mouse. But now that they are in this newsletter, I plan to print them out, hang them on the wall, and re-ally start learning them — I encour-age you to do the same.

The following are my favorites:•Command-Spacebar - If you’re

like me, you have far too many ap-plications to squeeze into your dock. And if you’re like me, your applica-tions folder is FULL of programs. Hit “command-spacebar” to quickly pull up Spotlight. Usually, all it takes is typing the first two letters of the application I’m looking for and it comes up in the “Top Hit” field. Just hit return and it opens.

• Command-Option-Eject - Like most people, my computers are set to sleep at 10 minutes. But what if you need to step away? Rather than waste 10 minutes of electricity, I like to put my computer to sleep as soon as I walk away. The only problem is that I’m also in the habit of hitting Command-Option-Control-Eject, which quits all applications and shuts the computer down. So, make sure you DON’T hit the Control key.

Keyboard commands save time

Learn your shortcuts!

Just using a few of these shortcuts can save gobs of valuable time.

Command-A Select All ItemsCommand-C Copy Selected ItemsCommand-D Duplicate Selected ItemsCommand-F Search with SpotlightCommand-G Find Next Matched SearchCommand-H Hide WindowCommand-I Open Get Info (Property) PaneCommand-J Show View OptionsCommand-K Connect to ServerCommand-L Make Alias of Selected ItemsCommand-M Minimize WindowCommand-N Open New WindowCommand-O Open Selected ItemsCommand-T Copy Items to SidebarCommand-V Paste ItemsCommand-W Close Finder WindowCommand-Z Undo ActionCommand-1 View as IconsCommand-2 View as ListsCommand-3 View as ColumnsCommand-4 View as CoverflowCommand-Shift-A Go to Application FolderCommand-Shift-B Open BluetoothCommand-Shift-C Go to My ComputerCommand-Shift-G Open Address BarCommand-Shift-H Go to Home FolderCommand-Shift-I Connect to iDiskCommand-Shift-J Open Journaler (If Any)Command-Shift-K Go to Network FolderCommand-Shift-L Go to SafariCommand-Shift-N Create New FolderCommand-Shift-Q Log OutCommand-Shift-U Go to Utility FolderCommand-Shift-Y Attach to StickiesCommand-Option-D Hide the DockCommand-Option-M Minimize All WindowsCommand-Option-O Open File and Close FinderCommand-Option-T Hide ToolbarCommand-Option-W Close All WindowsCommand-R Show Original (From Alias)Command-Option-Escape Force QuitCommand-Spacebar Activate/Deactivate SpotlightCommand-Option-Spacebar Open Spotlight WindowCommand-Option-Control-Eject Quit All Applications and Shut DownCommand-Option-Eject SleepControl-Eject Show Restart, Sleep, Shutdown Dialog BoxCommand-Control-Eject Quit All Applications and Restart


By Maria O. Arguello

Editor’s Note: At our February meeting we’ll be presenting the new Adobe CS4 suite. The following is a sneak preview of the new Photoshop Extended.

There are two editions of Photoshop CS4. If you work in film, video, multimedia, 3D, manufacturing, architecture, engineering, medicine, or science, Photoshop Extended is for you. If not, then Photoshop CS4 will serve you well. There are so many new features in CS4 which take advantage of Open GL to ren-derscreeneffectssuchasRotateView,dynamicbrush resizing, pixel tossing, enhanced naviga-tion, and more. Another technology called “seam carving” allows you to resize your im-ages so your focal point remains unchanged. In step with these, comes a real 3-D engine, new Masks and Adjustments panels, and selective editing in Camera Raw, among many other new features.

One of my favorite features in Photoshop CS4 is the enhanced navigation, thanks to the support for Open GL. Open GL is built into most video cards; it lets you zoom and pan ever so smoothly. There are no more bad zoom lev-els with choppy interactions between pixels, keeping you from gauging sharpness or edges when viewing at 66.7%. Now every zoom level is beautiful. Continuous zoom is al-ways smooth. If you zoom in far enough, you get the pixel grid which is a border between independent pixels to gauge where one pixel starts and another stops. Navigator Palettes are no longer needed to navigate within a zoomed image. Simply press and hold the H key to get the hand tool and then click and hold the mouse, you zoom out from the im-age and have a rectangular box to move it to another area. Let go of the mouse and you’re in the new location imme-diately. You can still drag the old way with the spacebar but now you can ‘toss’ the image to get around very quickly.

Photoshop CS4 sports a new Interface with the Applica-tion Frame. By default the Application Frame fits everything in one window with tabs, but you can turn it off to work in a more Mac-like environment. When turned on all of Photoshop’s windows and panels stay together as you move things around and resizing the frame automatically resizes your panels and windows to fit inside the frame.

The Arrange Documents menu lets you see several docu-

SoftwareApplications, utilities, and more...

Photoshop CS4: It’s out and it’s hot!ments at the same time. At the top of the frame you’ll notice a new row of tools called the Application Bar. This is handy for working with many documents at the same time, along withtheverynewRotateViewtool.ByusingRotateView

you can spin your canvas, but not the pixels, to view it at an angle.

Palettes are now Panels. The Panels also be-have differently. One feature lets you set inde-pendent super groups which can be placed on other monitors if you have them. Or you can let the panels float.

There are new masks and adjustment pan-els. With the new Masks panel you can create a layer mask from a selection and then feather it on the fly. Adobe also added buttons for Re-fine Edges and Color Range functions for more mask adjustments.

Content-Aware Scale (CAS) is the latest miracle of imaging technology in Photoshop CS4. When I say jaw-dropping, I mean it. It

does miracles but when it goes bad, it really goes bad. The familiar Free Transform takes on super powers. Photoshop analyzes your image and alters unimportant areas.

Smart objects have been improved. You can move the smart object and a mask as a group when you link it. You can also apply perspective distortions to a smart object.

The enhanced Bridge 3.0 included in Photoshop CS4 is an independent program that lets you inspect the con-tents of a folder, evaluate an image, organize images, sort by .JPEG or .NEF (RAW), or camera. New in Bridge 3.0 are the Workspaces that can be modified rather than sav-ing each. You can also see the path of your folder. You can now use the loop tool on multiple images. There are new keyboard shortcuts in Bridge such as using the scroll wheel with the Command key to zoom in the view throughout Photoshop CS4.

The changes in Photoshop CS4 and Photoshop CS4 Extended make CS4 a must-have. There are so many new features that once you use them, you are spoiled; you won’t want to do without. The lack of 64-bit compatibility on the Mac is not a deal breaker; hopefully it will come in Photo-shop CS5. You will miss it if you work with files larger than 4 GigaBytes.

© 2008 Maria O. Arguello. Maria is a reviewer for the Macin-tosh user group community and the vendor liaison of the Macintosh Users Group of South New Jersey (MUGSNJ).

The new Photoshop comes in two flavors. For multimedia and more intensive uses, you’ll probably want to go with Photoshop CS4 Extended.


Ask Mr. Peach

Dear Mr. Peach: Help! I forgot my administrator password. My life is crumbling, what do I do?Mr. Peach: Fear not, my child. First, find your Mac OS X DVD installer disk. Yes, it must be somewhere. Next, restart your Mac and hold down the “C” key on boot up. After that, choose “Installer” and then “Reset Password.” If you have been faithful to the Apple gods, and if you’ve never said anything nice about Bill Gates, you can get a new password.

Dear Mr. Peach: My friends have shortcut icons along the top of their Finder window. How do I do this? I want to be cool like them.Mr. Peach: Simply select an icon, drag, hold, and release it onto the top toolbar. To remove the icon, you must hold down the Command key while you are dragging it off.

Dear Mr. Peach: Help! I can’t eject a DVD from my drive. What can I do?Mr. Peach: First, go to iTunes and try to eject from there. Don’t ask — it just works. Should that fail, restart your computer and hold down the mouse button. Keep your finger pressed down until the disk ejects, or the login screen appears. This method was a lifesaver for me once. If that stubborn disk STILL won’t come out, go to Disk Utility, select the misbehaving DVD, and click the “Eject” button at the top of the window. Now, if you are really, really desperate, go into Terminal and type “drutil tray eject.” This method will send your disk shooting across the room — make sure your cat is out of the way.

Dear Mr. Peach: I think I am spending too much time on my Mac. My wife divorced me and declared herself a com-puter widow.Mr. Peach: You might have made a big mistake. Your com-puter can never replace a loving and dedicated wife. You

should give up your computer and try to re-earn the love of your former spouse. You must give up gaming, net surfing, and YouTube. No more online Video Poker. Tell her that you are a changed man, and stop taking her to the Apple store on dates.

Dear Mr. Peach: My Spotlight is not indexing files on my external drives. Help!Mr. Peach: Go to System Preferences and click on “Spot-light” Now, click on “Privacy.” If your external drive is there, delete it. If it is not there, add it, then close down preferences. Wait a few moments and then go back into preferences and then remove it. This procedure sort of “resets” the indexing and should clear the problem up.

Dear Mr. Peach: I want to use Bluetooth to send my contact information to the handheld devices of my business as-sociates. Can I do this?Mr. Peach: You sure can. First, locate your personal informa-tion card in Address Book. In the Card menu, click on “Send This Card.” A Bluetooth window will now appear. Select a device that you’ve paired with your computer, and then select the method for sending the informa-tion (usually “OBEX Object Push”). In a moment your colleague will receive the card, and he or she will then need to accept it. In this way, you can send to cell phones, PDAs, and other Bluetooth-enabled devices. For more information, refer to article 51775 in the support section of the Apple website.

We’re not sure how Mr. Peach came to be. Some people think he is an artificial intelligence algorithm that was created one night when Chris Waldrip spilled coffee on his keyboard. However, what we know for sure is that Mr. Peach is smart and will be glad to an-swer your computer questions.

Tips of the Month•ShutyourcomputerdowninahurrywithCom-mand-Control-Option-Eject.• Dragging a file to your external drive? As you do, hold down Command and it will automatically remove it from your computer after it is copied to the other drive.

—Editor


November General Meeting Snapshots

left: Lawrence led the Q&A session, which included some great discussions on permissions, utility software, and more. right: Christina shows off the club’s newly approved bylaws. A thanks goes to Christina for formatting them into an attractive booklet.

left: Mike leads the formal business portion of the meeting. right: Mike is ecstatic after winning a door prize. He is now the proud owner of an iTunes gift card.

below left: A devoted member is called upon to serve as the honorary door prize ticket drawer.

top: Todd is shown moments before passing out from exhilaration. With the $25 iTunes card he’ll be able to download more Star Trek episodes.

Photos byTodd Daniel

The November meeting can only be described as sheer bliss. We had a great Q&A discussion period, which was followed by our annual business meeting. And then came the door prizes! Also, a thanks to our president for providing festive candy and sweets.


General Meetings Special Interest Group (SIG) Night

Dec. 16 Holiday Party w/ PC User Group SIGs closed for holidays

Jan. 20 Macworld Conference Review Jan. 27 OS X & Filemaker

Feb. 17 Adobe CS4 Creative Suite Feb. 24 OS X & Filemaker

Mar. 17 Handy Utilities for your Mac Mar 24 OS X & Filemaker

All meetings are held in the Macquarium auditorium. General meetings begin at 7 p.m. (6:30 p.m. social time). SIGs start at 7 p.m.

We are always looking for new SIGs - share your ideas by contacting any AMUG board member.

Need meeting directions, more details about the club, etc???

Visit: www.amugonline.org


Buy AMUG Gear online at our CaféPress store AMUG has an online store available to all our members through CaféPress.com. The store sells AMUG T-shirts, golf shirts, mugs, bumper stickers and other AMUG relat-ed items. Right now, all sales are done at cost and they’re quite affordable. You can order what you want, when you want right, on the Web.

Check out the online store at: http://www.cafepress.com/amug

This is a great way to publicize our club, PLUS when you wear an AMUG shirt to a meeting you receive an extra door prize ticket.

Directions to General Meetings at Macquarium1800 Peachtree Street,NW Suite 250, Atlanta,GA404-554-4000

From I-75 SouthTake the Howell Mill/Northside Drive Exit (#252). Go to the second ramp, which is Northside Drive. Turn left off the ramp onto Northside Drive. Go Approximately 1/2 mile to Collier Road and Turn Right. Fol-low Collier road 9/10 of a mile until it ends at Peachtree Street,then turn right. Macquarium is about 100 yards on the right.

From I-85 SouthTake Peachtree Street exit 86. This exit becomes GA-13 S. Take Peachtree Street exit ramp towards Buckhead. Merge onto Peachtree Rd. NE. Travel approximately one-half mile, Macquarium building is on your left. Park-ing entrance is on far side ofMacquarium sign next to R.Thomas.

From I-20Head towards 75/85 connector. Go north on 75/85. Take the 14th/10th Street exit. Pass over 10th street. Turn right onto 14th Street. Turn left onto Peachtree. Macquarium building is on your left, approximately one mile. Parking entrance is on far side of Macquarium sign next to R.Thomas.

Advertise in Maclanta and get your message

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Member Discounts AvailableMany companies offer discounts to AMUG members. We keep an updated listing on the AMUG forums. Before you make a purchase, check out our listing and see if you can save money. To reach the listing, go to http://fo-rums.amugonline.org and then go to “News and Information” and then to “Member Spe-cial Offers.”

Have you hugged your Mac today?