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Meeting Report: February 12th 2010
Posted: February 11th, 2010
Updated: February 16th, 2010
The meeting started with our usual discussion of the latest Mac related news. The hot topic was of course Apple’s iPad announcement. As expected members were very excited about the device and there was much discussion about its features and how it will affect the market for laptops, netbooks and other devices. Other news items discussed included:
During the workshop portion of the meeting members discussed various Mac problems and gave hints and tips. Alan was looking for recommendations for how to deal with a large number of duplicates in his iTunes library.
Robert gave a demonstration of the Image Capture application included with Mac OS X. The new Snow Leopard version is a big improvement over previous releases and can be used with a wide variety of scanners and most digital cameras without installing drivers from their manufacturers. Despite some hardware problems with his scanner and camera, Robert showed some of the useful scanning features including automatic cropping and various image adjustment options.
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January Meeting Cancelled due to Bad Weather
Posted: January 7th, 2010
Updated: January 12th, 2010
The January SEAL meeting was cancelled due to bad weather and the forecast for that evening. We posted a notice here and did our best to contact all our members before the meeting but appologies to anyone who made a journey only to find the meeting was off.
The next SEAL meeting will be held on Friday the 12th of February following our usual schedule.
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Meeting Report: 11th December 2009
Posted: December 14th, 2009
During our Workship session SEAL members discussed (amongst many things) a problem with Mail crashing after setting up Exchange integration (which turned out to be a problem with the calendars synced to iCal) and setting up home pages in Safari.
We had two presentations at this meeting:
John Pugh gave a presentation on the Mac OS X services feature which has been greatly enhanced in Snow Leopard. John demonstrated the built in services and showed us how to build your own services in Automator. More information about services along with a selection of additional services for download are available from
Mac OS X Automation.
Nigel and Robert then showed how screensharing can be used both as a way to access computers (both Macs and other platforms) from afar and as an aid to giving and receiving assistance with computer problems. They demonstrated the screensharing feature of iChat and how screensharing for use on a local network is built into OS X. For further information, CNet have a useful article covering Mac to Mac screensharing tips.
For members with other platforms or those who have friends and family not yet converted to Macs Nigel and Robert showed how you can connect from a Mac to any computer running the free and open source VNC server. They also used LogMeIn.com to connect to a home PC. LogMeIn has a basic free version available (Windows and Mac compatible) along with a more comprehensive subscription product.
Other cross-platform screensharing options mentioned were Skype which provides an iChat-like experience but does not support remote control, Yuuguu which provides chat and full screensharing and Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection which is a good choice for local screensharing if you have a PC with a Professional, Business or Ultimate edition of Windows.
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Meeting Report: 13th November 2009
Posted: November 15th, 2009
 
Following our new meeting format we kicked off with a discussion of this month’s Apple related news which concentrated on the new Magic Mouse which a couple of SEAL members had purchased. Robert demonstrated the Alpha version of Google’s Chrome browser which has recently become available.
This month’s workshop session was very busy. Several members helped Alan organise backup on his eMac with two external hard drives. Nigel assisted Graham with his Mac Classic II which had developed a hard drive problem. Nigel was able to get the hard drive working and retrieve Graham’s data.
Nigel gave this month’s presentation which was an introduction to Mac security. He covered some of the security features built into Mac OS X and discussed whether virus protection is a necessity. The general concensus was that it is not required with the very limited number of threats “in the wild”. However antivirus can be useful if you commonly share files with PC users and want to avoid spreading in infected file, for this Nigel recommended the open source ClamXAV. Apple have a section on their site dedicated to Mac security.
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New Meeting Format
Posted: November 8th, 2009
From the November meeting (to be held on Friday the 13th) we will be trialing a new meeting format with the aim of making meetings more interesting for everyone:
19:45 – 20:15 News – discussion of the latest Apple and Mac news.
20:15 – 21:00 Workshop – An opportunity for members to help each other with any problems they may be having and also to demonstrate any new hardware or software.
21:00 – 22:00 Presentation – A planned presentation on a pre-announced topic. This might be from a SEAL member but we also hope to arrange some guest speakers next year. At the November meeting Nigel will be giving a presentation on keeping your Mac secure.
Times are approximate and this format is not set in stone, let us know what you think of the changes.
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