On on January 8th, Ray Kallman discussed an on-line computer training package available on a web site. This site provide inter-active, animated training to help everyone better protect their computers from hackers or computer theives. If you'd like to take this course, enter:

http://iase.disa.mil/eta/iaav7-1/iaav7/iaa/launchpage.htm

in your browser or click here.

(08 January)

On August 16th, Skip Summers provided an excellent presentation on using VNC software to remotely control other computers. We have uploaded a copy of his Keynote presentation to our web site for anyone who would like a copy. You'll find it in .pdf format in the meeting handouts section of our web site. To access it go to the TarMac home page and click on the link "TarMac File Archieve" at the top of the home page. Then select the folder "Meeting handouts".

(17 August)

Using iChat

On July 19th, Lynn McAlpine provided another interesting and informative presentation demonstrating how to use iChat. We have provided a copy of Apple's iChat instructions in the meeting handouts section of our web site. To access it go to the TarMac home page and click on the link "TarMac File Archieve" at the top of the home page. Then select the folder "Meeting handouts". There you'll find the document in .pdf format.

(18 July)

On June 21st, Lyle Sanders provided an interesting and informative presentation demonstrating how to build a professional audio and video podcast with music, slides and voice-over using GarageBand. This was so well received that we have placed his presentation in the meeting handouts section of our web site. To access it go to the TarMac home page and click on the link "TarMac File Archieve" at the top of the home page. Then select the folder "Meeting handouts". There you'll find the presentation in both .pdf and .ppt formats.

(22 June)

On June 8th, ODC and TarMac completed installation and configuration of the internet connection. After several technical issues with the physical installion of the fiber optic DSL link, ODC is now up on a wireless broadband connection with Sprint. We will now have a high speed connection for use before and during meetings. If anyone has any questions, please send us an email to tidewatermug@mac.com. We thank everyone for your patience as we complete our move from C&M cafeteria. And we thank the members of the board for their time pulling cable, installing hardware, contacting ISP's and configuring the entire system.

(11 June)

On April 11th, we installed cable and routers in ODC for our eventual internet connection. The ODC staff has been in contact with Verizon to have them install a fiber optic DSL link. After a survey of the existing phone lines, Verizon determined that the phone cable conduit under the parking lot has collapsed and ODC will have to lay a new conduit before the service can start. ODC is checking on this and will update us when they have new information. If anyone knows of a company that can install underground cables for a reasonable cost, please send us an email at tidewatermug@mac.com.

(16 April)

ODC has given us run of their kitchen and we can make coffee for our meetings. They provide coffee, creamer, sugar, cups, etc. We are looking for a volunteer to make coffee before the meetings so if you'd like to earn the undying gratitude of the board and your fellow members, please send us an email, addressed to tidewatermug@mac.com. Your assistance is greatly appreciated.

If there's enough interest, we'll look into purchasing an iced tea machine for use during meetings. Let us know what you think.

(18 March)

Your board in conjunction with the staff at the ODC are making an effort to upgrade our meeting place. If you attended the meeting on March 15th, we hope you noticed a new floodlight light in the parking lot and new bulbs in fixtures outside the meeting room doors. ODC has repaired the leak in the ceiling and ceiling tiles have been replaced. We hope to have wireless internet installed shortly.

(18 March)

During the week of March 5th and running up until our meeting on the 8th, the TarMac board asked the membership to vote on a new meeting location. All members who had attended meetings at least 6 times in the last year were eligible to vote. The board narrowed the selection to the three best locations and listed the advantages and disadvantages of each on our web site. To view this information, check here.

The votes were tallied and the membership voted to remain at the Open Door Chapel. The final results were:
Open Door Chapel: 24 (58.5%)
Hampton Univ. (Town Center): 10 (24.4%)
Royster Church: 7 (17%)

(18 March)

Keep Norfolk Beautiful and the City of Norfolk are sponsoring an electronics recycling event on April 21st from 8 am to 4 pm at the WHRO parking lot on Hampton Blvd. (and 49th St.). This is open to all Norfolk residents and businesses that receive city trash service (this would be churches if they are on city trash). All items are free to drop off. Last year was the first year and they had 520 car loads of people bring 30,616 pounds of electronics!!

More information is on their website at http://www.norfolkbeautiful.org.

An alternative site that accepts computers (and other electronics) for recycling at any time is Planet E Recycling in Hampton, just off I-664. They take computers, monitors, external drives etc. A 10 cents per pound fee may be assessed on donations from people living outside of Hampton/Newport News. They are open 9 to 4 on weekdays and on Saturdays by appointment.

Planet E Recycling Solutions
Contact: Bob Malloy
2520 58th Street
Hampton, VA 23661
(757) 896-8463

For more information see http://www.hrclean.org/electronics/computer.shtml or http://www.arcvap.org/ecycle.html.

(Updated 19 February)

Following our meeting on February 8th and at the request of our members, we looked at a fourth potential meeting site and have reported on that location at the on the meeting location page. (If you know of a nother possiblility meeting site, let a board member know.)

To see info on this and the other likely candidates, check here.

(09 February)

Over the past several weeks, members of the TarMac board have reviewed nearly three dozen prospective meeting places. Many didn't meet our expectations as to size, location or cost. Of those that did, we called the locations and went to look at several. As of the February 8th, we found three likely candidates. We will continue our serach but right now we've narrowed the field to three. (If you know of a nother possiblility, let a board member know.)

To see info on the most likely candidates, check here.

(08 February)

Our search for a meeting place continues and we still have several places left to visit. We'll pass along any new infomation here and during our next meeting. We will continue to meet in the Open Door Chapel meeting room until a new prospect turns up. If you know of an alternative meeting place, please send us an email, addressed to tidewatermug@mac.com. Your assistance is greatly appreciated.

We held our second January meeting in the Open Door Chapel meeting room. We continued to discuss the search for a new meeting place, but the highlight of the evening was viewing Steve Jobs's keynote address from Mac World in San Francisco.

(22 January)

We held our first January meeting in the Open Door Chapel meeting room this evening. It was a successful meeting with 32 members providing a lively discussion. While the main discussion was the search for a new meeting place, we also discussed the latest news from Mac World in San Francisco.

Several members mentioned that they had a hard time finding the meeting place. The ODC sits off the road on the south side of Virginia Beach Blvd almost directly across from Hall Pontiac. The sign isn't well lit so you have to look closely.

We'll be meeting at ODC through January but we continue to look for a better, more centrally located meeting place. If you know of any suitable meeting places, please send us an email, addressed to tidewatermug@mac.com. Your assistance is greatly appreciated.

(11 January)

For those people who are holding unused gift cards from C&M Cafeteria, you should call (757)499-9744 between the hours of 8am and 10am Monday - Friday and leave your name, address and phone number. You can also provide this information by US Mail to:

C&M Cafeteria
737 Independence Blvd
Giant Square Shopping Center
Suite 114
Virginia Beach, VA 23455

While we don't have any other details,hopefully they will provide some type of compensation.

(08 January)

We've found a new meeting place for the month of January. It's convienient and a friendly place with a nice lounge & meeting room. We want to thank everyone who has provided us with suggestions for new meeting places. We've evaluated each one against our requirements and think we have found a good location at least for the short term.

We hope everyone will join us at:

The Open Door Chapel meeting room
3177 Virginia Beach Blvd.
Virginia Beach, VA 23452

For a map to this location click here:

The Open Door Chapel is across Virginia Beach Blvd from Hall Pontiac. There is a traffic light at the entrance to the church. The meetings will be held in the dining area, "The Kitchen Door". The entrance to the Kitchen Door is on the right side of the building near the back of the building.

While it does not have food or an internet connection, it does give us a comfortable meeting place at a reasonable price.

If you have an opinion or an idea for a new meeting place, please send us an email, addressed to tidewatermug@mac.com. Your assistance is greatly appreciated.

(06 January)

Your board has been actively looking for a new meeting place for the January (and follow-on) meetings. We've found several locations that are promising. We are using the following guide lines to pick the best place:

1. Central Location with easy access to major highways/interstates
2. Maintain the current dues structure
3. Private meeting room
4. Restaurant with no minimum number of people eating
5. Guaranteed reserved room for 2nd & 3rd Thursdays each month
6. Internet access/phone line

We are making every attempt to meet all of these requirements but may have to give up some. We'd like your input so if you have an opinion, please let us know which are most important to you. If you have an opinion or an idea for a new meeting place, please send us an email, addressed to tidewatermug@mac.com. Your assistance is greatly appreciated.

As soon as we have a new meeting place, we'll be notifying everyone by email and will update our web site.

(06 January)

We were notified on December 28th that C&M Cafeteria will close it's doors effective on December 28th. We will no longer be able to meet there and the TarMac board is actively looking for a new meeting place. We are soliciting ideas from our entire membership. If anyone has an idea for a new meeting place, please send us an email, addressed to tidewatermug@mac.com. Your assistance is greatly appreciated.

As soon as we have a new meeting place, we'll be notifying everyone by email and will update our web site. Stay tuned for exciting new changes!

(28 December)

It's official! Apple will open an Apple Store in MacArthur Center in Norfolk, VA. Opening day is Saturday, September 9th. For more details, see the Apple MacArthur web site at http://www.apple.com/retail/macarthurcenter/week/20060910.html.

(04 September)

The slides Lynn used in her OS X font program on June 15th are now available on the TarMac .Mac site. If you'd like to download the file, try the TarMac file archive at http://homepage.mac.com/tidewatermug/FileSharing3.html. The file is titled FontProgSides.pdf

Also, Lynn recommends the following web sites for more information on OS X fonts:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25710
Click here for a complete list of fonts that are installed and those that are optional and those that are not.

http://www.mac.com/1/learningcenter/Modules/osxFonts_index.html
Click here for a link to the .mac pro training site's slide show and movie about font management. You may need a .Mac account to access it.

And you can download Apple's Font management document, "Advanced Typography with Mac OS X Tiger. Using and Managing Fonts" at http://images.apple.com/pro/pdf/L311277A_FontTT_v4.pdf.

(Lynn, Thanks for a great presentation!)

(16 June)

The handout on Network Security used at the May 18 meeting is available on the TarMac .Mac site. If you'd like to download the file, try the TarMac file archive at http://homepage.mac.com/tidewatermug/FileSharing3.html.

(18 May)

For more than 10 years, the Newsroom Navigator has been used by New York Times reporters and editors as the starting point for their forays onto the Web. It primarily gives the news staff a solid starting point for a wide range of research functions without forcing all of them to spend time wandering around the web to find links of their own. This page is also available to anyone else who knows the address. If you're interested in a good reference site, try the New York Times "Newsroom Navigator" at http://www.nytimes.com/navigator/.

(10 March)

At the suggestion of our members, the shareware page will now list the shareware fee for each piece in the description. The fee may be listed as a dollar figure, freeware, donationware, beerware, etc. In every case, the shareware will be free to download and try but may require payment of a nominal fee (or donation of your choosing) in order to continue using it.

The shareware description also lists the minimum operating system version required to run that version. Versions that run on older Operating Systems may be available on the shareware web site.

(10 February)

Many members of TarMac have purchased hardware and memory from "Other World Computing". Because of this OWC has elected to build a web page for TarMac members with special prices and good deals. To access the TarMac page at OWC go to . This will required a login and password available only for TarMac members. You will find the login and password in our newsletter, "The Vaporware Gazette".

(09 February)

We uplaod a copy of each of our agendas and newsletters to our software archive. Each is in .pdf format. To download and view these files go to the TarMac software archive at http://homepage.mac.com/tidewatermug/FileSharing3.html.

All the TarMac news fit to print! (13 January)

At last evening's meeting we were unable to show the humorous movies where a Microsoft rep displays the new features of the Windows Vista operating system. As he describes it, the movie shows the very same features in Apple's OS X. To download and view these movies go to the TarMac software archive at http://homepage.mac.com/tidewatermug/FileSharing3.html.

Download and enjoy!

(Lyle, Thanks for the tip!) (13 January)

In the next several days, we'll be forwarding a customer satisfaction survey to everyone on the TarMac email list. Please take a few moments to give us your opinion on several topics related to our presentations and meetings. We'll compile the results and post them on our web site. As always, your comments are important to us and let us know how to better plan for future meetings. (09 Sptember)

At last night's TarMac meeting, we discussed the new series of electronic books in the "Take Control" series. if you'd like more information on this hand macintosh reference manuals and how-to books see the Take Control site at http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/. (09 Sptember)

Now that our meeting agendas have so much more information than just the schedule of events, we've decided to archive them on our web site. If you missed a meeting or would just like to have another copy, click on the "Agenda's online" icon on the home page or click here (24 August)

We've modernized and updated the entire site to make it easier to read. (19 July)

We've developed a widget that you can use to search the TarMac site. Now you can search for shareware, or other information on our site. Just download the widget here and install it in your dashboard. (OS 10.4). (13 June)

We added a new page to site to provide everyone with information on widgets. Those are mini-apps that pop up on your dashbaord in OS 10.4. Many new ones are being written every day and you can get a look at the latest by going to the "Widgets Page" (http://homepage.mac.com/tidewatermug/widgets.htm) or you can get to them through the software tab on the main page. Take a look and you can download widgets, get the latest news and learn to develop your own. (07 June)

Are you interested in buying a new piece of hardware or software? Want to check out the latest review and best price. Check out "MacReviewZone" (http://macreviewzone.com/index.php) for the latest reviews on new and refubished hardware and reviews of software. It also lists links to sites with the best prices. Worth a look before you make a purchase. (23 May)

Check out "The X Lab" (http://www.thexlab.com/) for an excellent source of troubleshooting and maintenace procedures. This ranks right up with Randy Singer's OS X Routine Maintenance and Generic Troubleshooting (http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html) web site. (25 April)

During our "open forum" discussion on April 14th, the subject of moving the start time earlier in the evening came up. Based on this discussion, we collectively decided to move future meeting start times from 7:00 pm to 6:45 pm. This will allow us an additional 15 minutes at the end of each meeting for questions, discussion and general socializing. (18 April)

Please check out the Apple Home page for places to assist in providing relief for the tsunami disaster at http://www.apple.com/

or

USAID's List of Relief Organizations Working In the Disaster Area at

http://www.usaid.gov/locations/asia_near_east/tsunami/ngolist.html

View images of the disaster here

(30 December)

Kent Queman is looking for volunteers to help with the Senior Tax Program that he runs. Volunteers would assist Senior Citizens with the completion of their income tax forms. Free training is provided by the program after the New Year. You can volunteer for one day or more a week assisting with taxes or just greeting and screening Seniors. He may also need help setting up computers. You can contact Kent through the TarMac Executive Committee by clicking here (13 December)

A well-known Answer Engine: a one-click reference library on demand. GuruNet brings up a quick definition or explanation: instant answers from encyclopedias, biographies, celebrities, companies, news, sports, weather, stock prices, maps, military terms, idioms, tech terms, and acronyms.

You can also download a helper application that will let you select any word in any application (e-mail, browser, Office, and so on) and press Command+Option+G. This will send the query directly to GuruNet.

Try the query from our home page and see how much different it is from doing typical Google searches. (06 October)

The schedule on our web site erroneouosly listed the October meetings as the October 7th and 14th. This is incorrect. The actual meeting dates are October 14th and 21st. We apologize of any inconvenience. (05 October)

We received the following note from the San Diego Macintosh User Group:

I am the former Vice President of the San Diego Macintosh User Group and Editor of its newsletter, "Macintouch". I am making available to the Macintosh community a Mac Hints & Tips monthly column in PDF format. You will find it at www.mac-hints-tips.com.

Mac Hints & Tips is free for your members to download and for your user group to reprint in your newsletter as long as you include the website address. If you prefer a text document so that you can format the column yourself, please contact me directly.

Sincerely,

Paul Taylor

(09 July)

Come join us on July 8th for a demo of Apple's state-of-the-art video camera called iSight. We'll teleconference across the internet with our president, Brian Fountain on vacation in Michigan. If all goes well, Brian will run the meeting from the "Big Screen" using iSight and iChat. (23 June)

If you missed Larry McCullough's June 10th presentation, "Converting Video Tapes into DVD's", or if you'd just like to review it again, click here to download a .pdf file containing all the slides.

If you'd like a complete copy of entire presentation with slides and notes, contact the TarMac board. The file is approximately 1.5 megs in size. (16 June)

Check out Randy Singer's OS X Routine Maintenance and Generic Troubleshooting (http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html) web site for a complete maintenance routine for OS 10.2 and OS 10.3. He recommends a number of free, shareware and commercial utilites and shows you how to use them to keep your Mac trouble free. (08 June)

The OS X Utilities Software page has been updated to show the latest utilites. This page lists list utilites recommended by a number of Mac OS X web sites like MacFixit. Check out the utilites page at http://homepage.mac.com/tidewatermug/osxshareware.htm. (02 June)

Just a reminder that SecureMac.com (http://www.securemac.com/) is an excellent security site for the Mac. If you're concerned about security vulnerabilities, spybot software, trojan horses, or hackers, this site will provide the latest information.

For more security information, be sure to checkout our "Networking and Internet Security links" site.

(01 June)

Good News! C&M Cafeteria now has their DSL line installed and it's working with their computers. We hope that the wireless router will be installed and operational in time for the meeting on Thursday, May 13th. (10 May)

Do you want to comparison shop before purchasing on the web? Try one of the "ShopBots" that's part of most search engines. You can compare prices and availability of most anything you you can purchase on the web by using one of these specilized search engines:

Google's Froogle
Price Grabber
Yahoo! Shopping
Bizrate Shopping Search

These sites will also be listed on our "Cool Sites" page.

(31 March)

Are you interested in taking an Apple Seminar? Check out the following Apple site for Seminars, Training and other events of interest. Most are free and are taught in the local area.

For more information, click here.

(15 March)

In an effort to keep the TarMac membership better informed of our activities, we want to give everyone the opportunity to join the TarMac email list. The list will keep all our members abreast of the latest information on our meetings and other activities. When you add your address, you will recieve periodic emails from the executive committee with meeting notifications, updates on our presentations, announcements, etc. We will not use the list for advertising and we won't sell or give away your address to advertisers or spammers.

If you do not already receive TarMac email announcements and would like to join the list, click here.

(19 February)

After considerable research and a poll of our members, TarMac will be moving to a new location beginning on March 11th. C & M Cafeteria is located in Giant Square at 737 Independence Blvd in Virginia Beach. It has excellent facilities in a quiet, smoke-free environment. There is lots of good parking. There is a large meeting room with booths around the outside and tables in the center. The cafeteria offers a number of very good inexpensive meal options. For more details, please read Tom Davis' report to the membership by clicking here.

Meeting start time will be 7:00pm so we will be done by cafeteria closing time.

We will be raising our dues to $3.00 per meeting to cover the additional cost of this greatly improved facility.

You can view photos at http://homepage.mac.com/tidewatermug/cafeteria.htm and see a map with directions at http://homepage.mac.com/tidewatermug/tarmacmap.htm.

Here are the results of the poll to change our meeting location. As of February 16th, we received 65 (43.6%) replies out of an email distribution of 149:

1. Move to C & M.	60 Yes	1 No	4 Pass	92.3% Yes
2. Change time to 7PM.	58 Yes	4 No	3 Pass	89.2% Yes
3. Increase Dues to $3.	62 Yes	1 No	2 Pass	95.4% Yes
4. First Mtg 11 March.	59 Yes	3 No	3 Pass	90.8% Yes

You can provide feedback to all Executive Committee members here . (17 February)

We've now added a new polling function to our web site. We'll be asking questions that will enable us to better tailor both our meetings and our Web Site. For our first poll, we're asking everyone to tell us how often they attend TarMac meetings. We would appreciate everyone taking the poll so we can see how many non-locals visit our site.

If you'd like to take the poll, just click here. (03 January)

I've again updated the OS X utility programs handout from our September 11th discussion of the wide variety of new OS X utilities. The update shows a change in status of several utilites and new version numbers for many to support Panther. Additionally, Mac Pilot, another Swiss Army Knife utility has been added to the list. If you would like to download a copy of the updated handout in MS Excel format, click here.

To display it on your screen, click here. To see the associated notes,click here. (29 December)

IT-Enquirer is developing a Panther manual and as each chapter is completed, it's free to download. To see the IT-Enquirer site, click here. There's a wealth of Mac related information on their site in addition to the manual.

To download a copy of the completed chapters of the Panther manual, click here.

(28 December)

Congratualtions to our Logo Design Winners:

1) Anonymous
2) D.C. Amarasinghe
3) Bobbie Berryman

And thanks to everyone who submitted entries and especially all our members who came out to vote. You can view the three winning entries by clicking here.

You can view the complete collection of submissions on your screen by clicking here.

To download a copy of the submissions (compressed with stuffit), click here.

(22 December)

Everytime you open a web page some amount of information about you is passed to that site. This link contains some of the most basic information passed by javascript back to the web site. (13 October)

During the September 11th meeting, we showed a nighttime satellite photograph of the US during the August 14 blackout. To display it on your screen, click here. If you'd like to download a copy, click here. (12 September)

Gerry Rowe Memorial Donation

During our meetings in April, TarMac took up $190 in donations in Gerry Rowe's memory. We added another $110 from the TarMac treasury and sent a $300 memorial donation to the Generic Theater for the "Hope is a Thing with Feathers" endowment fund. (18 Apr)

Gerry Rowe News Articles

Read the Virginian Pilot Newspaper's tribute to Gerry here. Read Mal Vincent's tribute to Gerry in the Virginian Pilot Newspaper here. You can read Gerry's obituary here. If you can find a copy of the March 25th edition of Port Folio Weekly, the Editor's Notebook, "A Life Well Lived", is about Gerry and a second article on page 20 is titled "Gerry Rowe's Final Act". Regretfully, Port Folio hasn't put either of these on their web site. (12 April)

Gerry Rowe Memorial

TarMac will be accepting donations for a memorial to Gerry. Anyone interested in contributing should contact Ray Kallman here or any of the other TarMac officers. In addition to his love for Macintoshs, his second love was the theater. As an actor, director and financial supporter, he made significant contributions to the theatrical arts in Hampton Raods and the Generic Theater of Norfolk in particular. For this reason, we've decided to make a memorial contribution to the Generic Theater's "Hope is a Thing with Feathers" fund, an endowment created by Gerry. (11 April)

Gerry Rowe has passed away

We've just been notified that our President and long-time member, Gerry Rowe passed away on April 9th. He courageously battled cancer since last year and was active in TarMac up until the end. A memorial service will be held at 2pm on April 19th at the Unitarian Church in downtown Norfolk. The church is located at 739 Yarmouth Street near the Chrysler Museum. Click here for a map. (10 April)

Chartway Federal Credit Union

TarMac has recently become a member of Chartway Federal Credit Union. This entitles all our members for membership there also. So check them out here. To open an account mention that you are a member of Tidewater Area Macintosh Users Group. (22 March)

Mac Hints & Tips Column

Check out the new Mac Hints & Tips Column written by Paul Taylor, the former Vice President of the San Diego Macintosh User Group. It's published monthly on the web and can be viewed here. (18 February)

OS X trouble shooting

Check out Randy Singer's OS X troubleshooting page. A good place to go when you have problems. From a Co-Author of: The Macintosh Bible (4th, 5th and 6th editions). Click here to go to the "How To Deal With Common Macintosh OS X 10.2 Jaguar Problems" web site. You'll also find the link on our OS X resources page. (22 November)

Crazy Apple Rumors

For a good chuckle,take a look at the Crazy Apple Rumors web page. It's the latest in tongue-in-cheek news about Apple and the computer industry. Check out the CrazyAppleRumors by clicking here to go directly to the site http://www.crazyapplerumors.com/. (01 November)

Bill Gates switches to a Mac

See the Macboy.com parody of Apple's latest ads. This one shows Bill Gates switching to a mac. Click here for the link to the ad. Also, be sure to check out ads by Steven the Dell guy and Big Brother at the same site. (16 July)

Read Floppies with OS X

We've just added a new OS X driver to the OS X software page and shareware page. "SWIM3 floppy driver" allows you to mount floppies in standard Mac floppy drives in OS X. (07 June)

Email Links

Check out the new email section in our "Mac Web Sites" page. Find new applications and "tips & tricks" to improve your email. There's even a link to help you convert address book entries and mail from one application to another.(17 May)

Urban Legends and Internet Hoaxes

We've added two new urban legend and internet hoax saites to our "Cool" sites page. Check out "ScamBusters" and "Break the Chain" for the latest info on scams and chain letters. Click here to go to the Cool sites page and look for the "New" links signs. (15 May)

Track RAM prices!

Try out RAM Seeker, a new web page that tracks the lowest RAM prices. Click here or go to the Hardware section under our Mac Web Pages button. (29 Mar)

"Make OS X look like OS 9" Utilities

Do you miss the old Apple menu or the Application switcher in OS 9? We've added a new section to our OS X Utilities page for those utilities that add OS 9 functionality to OS X. (29 Mar)

TarMac web site has moved!

Since you've reached this point, you've already found out that the old TarMac URL now redirects you to a new site. Our web site is now being hosted on Cox.net because, in Brian's words, infi.net's web site hosting for TarMac "is going the way of the dodo bird". Our new URL is:

http://homepage.mac.com/tidewatermug/index.html

Be sure to update your bookmarks and links with our new address. (15 Mar)

Web site improvements

We're making a real effort to improve the web site and bring new, interesting and up-to-date links to the site. Be sure to check the bottom of each links page for the date it was last updated and look for the "NEW" icon that identifies new links. (12 Mar)

OS X Utilities

The shareware section now includes an OS X utilities page. If you're now using OS X be sure to download the latest "must have" utilities. Click here to go to our OS X Utilities page. (10 Mar)

OS X Shareware

The shareware section now includes links to OS X versions of all our popular shareware. If you're now using OS X be sure to download the latest versions. Also, in the near future we hope to add a page of "must have" OS X utilites with links to download them. Keep checking back for this section. (15 Feb)

New Projector!

We've retired the monster projector. (You know, the one the size of an end table!) A new ViewSonic projector is on order from MacWarehouse and should arrive before the December meeting. We all look forward to new presentations and solicit ideas from all our members. "Your dues at work!" (15 Nov)

New OS X web sites

We've added a number of new OS X web links to the "Mac Web Sites" page and included a new section devoted to archives of OS X software. Click here to go to our Mac Web Sites page. (25 Oct)

Buy or sell a used Mac

Try out the new web site SecondhandMac to buy or sell a used mac. This is a relatively new site but there are already a number of good deals for sale. (27 Jul)

Find People and Businesses

Try the AnyWho web page to locate addressees, phone numbers, email addresses and maps for people and businesses. Click on the link above. You can also find this link on our "Cool Sites" page. (30 May)

Bandwidth Speed test

Have you wondered just how fast a connection you're really getting through your 56k modem, DSL or cable modem? Well check the Bandwidth Speed Test web page. This gives you 86 different tests to show in seconds how fast you're connecting. You can also find this link on our "Cool Sites" page. (30 Mar)

Anky Vanderstok memorial donation

During the month of February, TarMac took up $200 in donations in Anky Vanderstok's memory. We added another $100 from the TarMac treasury and sent a $300 memorial donation to the American Cancer Society. (08 Mar)

Anky Vanderstok has passed away

We've just been notified that one of our long-time members, Anky Vanderstok passed away on February 8th. She was diagnosed with cancer and hospitalized shortly before she died. When we have more information, we'll pass it along. (12 Feb)

Desktop Pictures

If you like desktop pictures, try our new section of links to desktop picture sites. Thousands of pictures here so there's something for everyone! Give it a try.

Click here and scroll down to the desktop picture section.

(16 Jun)

Tidewater MacFair

TarMac is looking for a volunteer to organize the yearly MacFair. This annual event is our opportunity to show the Macintosh to the public and includes booths set up by local and national vendors, a variety of presentations and numerous educational opportunities. Any TarMac members who would like to volunteer to either organize the event or assist in preparations should send email to Ray Kallman here or any of the other officers.

rgk