Topic: Dan's Tutorials

Dan will present Ask Me Anything (AMA) about Apple stuff. Please email him your 'ask' prior to the meeting at dan@danstutorials.com and indicate it is for the MLMUG meeting. Dan will also provide insight on how he puts his videos together. This will be fun.

Dan has provided some of his tutorials Here for MLMUG members with no signup required.

BIO:

Dan Wassink is the the owner, trainer, and most everything else for Dan's Tutorials. He personally has been working on the Mac for over 30 years, starting out in the magazine publishing industry. He then went to work for Apple as a Genius helping people on a daily basis with their Apple devices. He decided to develop tutorials and offer them through online and through the App Store. He quit Apple and hasn't looked back. He also helps out a local private school that is all Apple based. He has helped hundreds of thousands of people learn more about their Apple products through his tutorials.

Topic: Cut the cord to Microsoft Office with Apple Pages and Numbers

When Terry Wilson said goodbye to QuarkXPress after retiring from a career in graphic arts, she still found the need to create printed materials for personal use. Moving to Pages also gave her a reason ditch an aging Word app, soon followed by Numbers replacing Excel of the same vintage.

Pages has matured into a competent word processing and page layout application, and Numbers organizes data just fine, with a more intuitive interface.

Terry's presentation will demonstrate how these Apple applications are competent replacements for the two Office apps, and even page layout software.

Video of Zoom meeting - first 75 minutes are Q&A, last 115 minutes are Terry's presentation.

BIO:

Terry moved to California in 2011 from New Jersey but Covid has paved the way for her to do zoom meetings in New Jersey and Pennsylvania after well over 10 years. Terry is a 30+ year member of PMUG and a past presenter and supporter of MLMUG. When we had inperson holiday parties we used her website WhosBringingWhat.com, which still manages the potlucks.

Topic: Pixlr, the Free Web-Based Photo & Graphics Editing Program

Adobe Photoshop has a well-earned reputation for being among the top photo and graphics editing programs. However, not everyone needs to use its powerful feature-set every day. Advanced users may also not be happy with Photoshop's subscription plan, nor find that free editing programs meet their needs.

One interesting alternative is Pixlr (pixlr.com,) a free Web-based program which can meet occasional photo and graphics editing needs, yet has some of Photoshop's more powerful features (like simultaneous crop & resize, layers, and masks.)

PMUG's Michael Blank will demonstrate Pixlr version E (pixlr.com/e/) -- he will start by introducing the program's interface and tools, show how to use it for basic photo editing tasks, go through some of its more advanced features, then take you step-by-step and show how to make graphics from scratch with it.

BIO:

Michael Blank has been PMUG's Webmaster since 1995, and a member since 1989. He also manages the group's Twitter (twitter.com/pmugnj) and Instagram (instagram.com/pmugnj) accounts, and produces its Monthly Meetings Podcast. Michael is a Website designer for the Princeton Internet Group. (pingsite.com)

Topic: Fun with Text in Pages

Learn how to use advanced text options in Pages

Pages on a Mac has a variety of tools for making text interesting. You can fill text with colors and gradients, or even images. You can add a border to text, and also shadows and background colors. And these tips will also work in Mac Keynote and Numbers too.

BIO:

Gary Rosenzweig is the host and producer of MacMost, a website and YouTube channel with daily Mac and Apple tutorials. Gary has written more than 40 books on computers and has published more than 20 online courses. He is also a website and app developer.

Topic: PLEX

Stream Movies, Shows, Live TV, and more

There's one topic I've always avoided presenting in person despite regular requests, but have recently found it works VERY well over Zoom: PLEX (https://www.plex.tv/). With everyone looking at their screens, we can really have a truly interactive conversation about Plex while truly *showing* things in a way that everyone can actually see what's going on.

BIO:

Dave Hamilton has presented to MLMUG several times, last in May 2019, and is an engaging speaker. In 1988, Dave Hamilton co-founded The Mac Observer, an online magazine and one of the leading daily news sites for the Macintosh community. Dave is also President and co-founder of BackBeat Media, a publisher service agency representing the advertising and operations activities of consumer technology-focused Websites and Podcasts, helping them to grow their businesses. Additionally, he is the publisher and co-host of the Mac Geek Gab Podcast, launched in 2005, which is one of the top Mac Podcasts in the market today. Dave maintains his Blog at DaveTheNerd.com.

Topic: Mac Backup Strategies

PMUG's Robert Golding will take us through some basic backup strategies using Apple's built-in Time Machine, cloning using Carbon Copy Cloner and also touch on the on-line backup options. He will focus on explaining Time Machine and differentiating it from Cloning along with illustrating his own backup system which consists of Time Machine, weekly clones to a Raid Mirror and monthly off-site backups. This has been his strategy since 2004 when an "oops" on an iPhoto backup caused some family strife.

Rob's charts are Here

BIO:

Robert Golding is a life-long Mercer County (NJ) resident and began attending Rider in 1989 as a Chemistry Major. It was there that he first glimpsed analytical chemistry, the Mac and ChemDraw. In his Chemistry profession, Rob found a career fit at Firmenich Inc. in 1998, and has held positions in product development, research, analytical research and perfumery technical analysis. He is currently a Scientist in Perfumery Technical Analysis. With Macs following all the way from 1989, Rob worked for Apple from 2000-2006 in retails sales and support. During the 2000's, Rob was PMUG's President, Newsletter Editor, and Vendor Liaison. He lives in the Trenton area and is married with three daughters and two cats, the oldest of which seems to be interested in chemistry (the daughter not the cat, but you never know). In whatever spare time can be found, he enjoys amateur astronomy, computer graphics and publishing, the occasional strategy game, gardening, and reading.

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Note: MLMUG's Newer Users Special Interest Group meets from 10 AM to Noon on the 4th Saturday of each month. Go to the Home page and scroll down for details.

Topic: Virtualizing MacOS for Fun and Utility

You may be aware that Macs have long been able to run Windows via Bootcamp or virtualization software, but did you know that you can also virtualize macOS? Attend this presentation to learn about the three most popular virtualization software options and how you can use them to run various versions of macOS on your Mac.

We'll also talk about some of the reasons why it may be a good idea to do so and how you can accomplish this. Aric will provide a list of where you can still get older macOS releases from Apple or Apple-approved sources, most for free.

Aric's pdf notes are Here. See MLMUG list emails for links to meeting videos.

BIO:

Aric Pedersen is the President Pro Tempore of PMUG and he's worked for many years in the technology sector. He has used Macs primarily since 1990. Aric can often be found answering questions on the PMUG help list while he waits for the world to return to something like normalcy. Aric currently resides in Florida.

Topic: Take Control of Monterey

macOS 12 Monterey ships this fall, and it's full of interesting new features that can improve your productivity and privacy. It also has a few potentially unwelcome surprises, including some controversial changes to Safari. In this presentation, Joe Kissell takes you through the major changes in Monterey, from the flashy to the obscure. He covers the upgrade process, how to find your way around, and how to get started with features such as Focus, iCloud+, and Shortcuts.

BIO:

Joe Kissell is the author of more than 60 books on Apple software and other technology-related topics. He is also (since 2017) the publisher of Take Control Books. Joe lives in San Diego with his wife, two kids, and a cat.

Topic: Retrospective: Reflections on 45 years covering Apple

On the brink of what he calls "semi-retirement", Bob "Dr. Mac" LeVitus looks back on 45 years of covering Apple, replete with funny stories, quotes, photos, movies, and more. If you miss Macworld Expo and the way things used to be, join him for this nostalgic trip through time and space.

BIO:

Bob "Dr. Mac" LeVitus has been writing about Apple technology since 1986 and is the author of more than 90 books and many thousands of articles and columns.

Topic: Fun with FileMaker

For several years, even before I retired from the planetarium profession, I've been taking some standard board games like Tic-Tac-Toe, Concentration (pairs-matching game), and even a Slot Machine, and created animated computer versions of them, just for my own amusement. For such an endeavor, one needs a programing system with reasonable graphics, a good user-input system, and extensive scripting. This sounds like a job for...FileMaker Pro? The database application?! Yes: although it wasn't designed for such a purpose, FMP can produce some surprisingly nice results. Trying to find ways to perform these tasks taught me a lot about the application. And it's been great fun!

In this presentation, we'll look at the old "Battleship" game, where two opponents place ships in small oceans, and try to sink their opponent's ships with torpedos.

If members who own FMP wish to preview some of my efforts, they can look at my Public Dropbox folder at
http://www.dropbox.com/sh/92keslpl8d6a64c/74AK54kLy9.

BIO:

Keith's first computer was a TI-59 programmable calculator which stored programs on magnetic strips of tape. He got into the Apple II world early with a black 48K machine sold by Bell & Howell, and was a columnist for the AppleWorks Journal for several years. He's gone through several Macs, including the Power Macintosh G3 that looked like a giant molar. He even remembers the day when applications were called programs. Keith has done audio and video production for several planetariums on the Mac platform...and greatly mourns the passing of QuickTime Player Pro.