Newsletter to Members
March 2007
Monthly Meeting Monday 5 March
The usual venue, level 3 Theatrette, Webster Building, UNSW Kensington 6:30pm
We have some great new Raffle Prizes including:
- a 3-port FireWire 400 PCI card valued at $42 (fits any desktop Mac with a spare PCI slot)
- an Apple iPod Carrying Case with Belt Clip
- an Apple iPod Camera Connector
- The iPod Book, Third Edition, by Scott Kelby, courtesy of Peachpit Press.
- plus CD/DVD blank media and other good stuff.
Apple Inc. and The Beatles’ Apple Corps Ltd. Enter into New Agreement
CUPERTINO, California and LONDON—Apple® Inc. and The Beatles’ company Apple Corps Ltd. are pleased to announce the parties have entered into a new agreement concerning the use of the name “Apple” and apple logos which replaces their 1991 Agreement. Under this new agreement, Apple Inc. will own all of the trademarks related to “Apple” and will license certain of those trademarks back to Apple Corps for their continued use. In addition, the ongoing trademark lawsuit between the companies will end, with each party bearing its own legal costs, and Apple Inc. will continue using its name and logos on iTunes®. The terms of settlement are confidential.
Commenting on the settlement, Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO said, “We love the Beatles, and it has been painful being at odds with them over these trademarks. It feels great to resolve this in a positive manner, and in a way that should remove the potential of further disagreements in the future.”
Commenting on the settlement on behalf of the shareholders of Apple Corps, Neil Aspinall, manager of Apple Corps said, “It is great to put this dispute behind us and move on. The years ahead are going to be very exciting times for us. We wish Apple Inc. every success and look forward to many years of peaceful co-operation with them.”
Cisco and Apple Reach Agreement on iPhone Trademark
SAN JOSE and CUPERTINO, California—February 21, 2007—Cisco and Apple today announced that they have resolved their dispute involving the “iPhone” trademark. Under the agreement, both companies are free to use the “iPhone” trademark on their products throughout the world. Both companies acknowledge the trademark ownership rights that have been granted, and each side will dismiss any pending actions regarding the trademark. In addition, Cisco and Apple will explore opportunities for interoperability in the areas of security, and consumer and enterprise communications. Other terms of the agreement are confidential.
Mac-iPod Education* RebateBuy a Mac before 16 April 2007 and save $199 on an iPod –
Here’s the deal...
- Buy a new MacBook, MacBook Pro, iMac with SuperDrive or Mac Pro from the Apple Store for Education or an Apple Authorised Campus Reseller store;
- Buy any iPod or iPod nano at the same time (iPod Shuffle does not qualify);
- Download the claim form and mail it to Apple within 30 days for your $199 rebate.
Details: www.apple.com/au/go/education/offer/
* Offer available only to bona-fide Education customers – eligible buyers and products are lsted here.
User Group University: Podcasts of Sessions Available
Our meeting convenor Colin Palmer attended the ninth annual User Group University at the Argent Hotel in San Francisco, as part of his visit to Macworld Expo in January (here he is, pictured during a refreshment break at the Vendor reception that followed). User Group University is hosted by the User Group Advisory Board each year at Macworld Expo.
You can listen to podcasts of presentations given at User Group University by legendary Mac experts Steve Wozniak, Bob LeVitus, Chris Breen, Adam Engst and others.
By clicking on the Subscribe button at this URL, the list of podcasts is added to iTunes on your Mac, so that you can download and play selected podcasts within iTunes. They last from about 30 to 45 minutes (Steve Wozniak’s ‘iWoz’ is 52 minutes); average file size is about 30Mb.
Hear the best of UGU: web.mac.com/ugab/
Macworld Expo: User Group Highlights Page
With links to photos of User Group University, the User Group Guides, User Group Booth and User Group Lounge, podcasts and more, the User Group Advisory Board's Macworld Expo pages offer a great peek at the cool things user groups did this January in San Francisco. It's all here:
homepage.mac.com/ugab/mwsf07.html
These User Group discounts are brought to you by the Apple User Group Advisory Board and Tom Piper, vendor relations. You must be a current user group member to qualify for these savings. Here is this month’s offer:
TopXNotes: 25 Percent Off
TopXNotes has evolved from a simple replacement for Apple's Notepad into a modern note organizing system. Its unique features include MultiView, the ability to view many notes at once and a sliding toolbar that keeps text controls above where you type. NoteOrganizer is an advanced table-of-contents with user-defined categories/groups. The most popular benefit is instant desktop access via QuickNotes to your critical information. TopXNotes also includes automatic backups, unlimited Undo, Find and note-encryption to keep sensitive information safe.
User group members receive a 25 percent discount by purchasing TopXNotes for US$22.50 (regularly US$30.00), or TopXNotes iPod for US$26.25 (regularly US$35.00) at their web site by using the coupon code below.
Coupon Code: UGSpecial
https://secure.tropic4.com/WebStore/index.php
This worldwide only offer is valid through May 31, 2007.
Tech Tips: Resizing Photos for Emailing
Have you ever freaked out relatives or colleagues when you email them high-res photos from your six- or eight-meg digital camera? They may not have Photoshop CS2, so dealing with that 26MB, 41-inch-wide photo you shot with your eight-meg camera might put a strain on their system! That’s why you might want to reduce the size of those photos you’re about to email. You don’t even have to launch Photoshop – because you can do the resizing right within Apple Mail.
After you attach a photo to your email message (you can just drag-and-drop the image into the New Message window), take a look in the bottom-right corner of your email message window, and you’ll see a pop-up menu where you can choose the Image Size to send. Choose a size (other than Actual Size), and the image is immediately scaled down right within the email message window so you can see the exact size of the message you’re sending.
And the Oscar goes to… Keynote!
Former US Vice President Al Gore, who sits on Apple’s Board of Directors, used a Mac and Apple Keynote software to create the presentation he’s seen giving in “An Inconvenient Truth,” his documentary on climate change that won an Academy Award for best documentary feature.
Two members of the Norwegian parliament have nominated Al Gore for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of the work he’s done to promote awareness of global warming.
Readiris Pro for Mac – new version 11.0
Readiris Pro 11 is the only Mac OCR software designed to work on the latest Mac OS X versions and the latest scanners. According to I.R.I.S., this version converts paper documents and PDF files into electronic editable files faster and more accurately than any other Mac OCR software.
Features:
- New OCR engine for even more accurate OCR results
- New brushed-metal user interface for easy navigation
- New fully configurable toolbar to customize your interface
- Multilingual - recognizes more than 110 languages!
- Output formats: RTF, HTML, XLS, PDF, TXT
- New bar code reading - data locked in bar codes is automatically retyped
- Unique Handprinting Recognition engine to scan personal notes
- New extended PDF support - create 4 types of PDF files (image over text, text over image or text or image only) and optimize the file size for easier archiving and sharing
- Copy/paste text and graphic zones from Readiris to any application
- Perfect recognition of color documents
- Automate functions such as image rotation, deskew, despeckle, automatic OCR, etc. in one click
- New printing function to get an overview of your scanned documents.
Visit the IRIS web site for more info.
eBooks Tip: Concentrate on Reading in Preview
Adapted from TidBITS#868/26-Feb-07
Adam Engst passes on a TidBITS reader’s tip for reading his Take Control ebooks using the Slideshow feature in Apple Preview, which comes with Mac OS X.
With an ebook (or any other PDF) open, choose View > Slideshow (Command-Shift-F). Your screen immediately goes black and displays just the current ebook page. Click the Fit to Screen button in the transparent slideshow toolbar to expand the page to the full size of your screen. Unfortunately, you cannot see or click on bookmarks, but you can click on any link to follow it, and Web links load invisibly behind the slideshow rather than switching to your Web browser.
To navigate between pages, press left and right arrow keys on your keyboard; press Escape to exit slideshow mode.
Learn Mac OS X basics in a friendly, informative environment. Presented by AMUG Sydney.
Saturday 10th March 10am-2pm.
Room 136C (Computer Lab), Ground Floor, Webster Building, UNSW Kensington.
- One Mac per person
- No questions too silly
- Use one of the Uni's eMacs or bring your own Notebook
- Get Apple's latest Software Updates on CD, without the big downloads
- Get MacFixIt's "Year of Fixes" archive Help files
- Free for AMUG members
To book, phone Rob on 9387 2069 or email sydamug@mac.com
If you do not wish to receive any future editions of this online newsletter, please send an email to AMUG Sydney.