Latest News
Meeting Report: 9th April 2010
Posted: April 10th, 2010
In our news segment, members discussed the iPad release and the first impressions of US users. We also covered Apple’s preview of iPhone OS 4.0 with it’s much anticipated and interesting new features such as multitasking and home screen folders.
During the workshop, members helped Alan free up some disk space on his eMac’s hard drive that was nearly full.
Finally Robert gave a demonstration of cooking application SousChef which allows you to catalogue your recipes and then print them or view them full screen, it even have voice control so you don’t have to touch the computer in the kitchen. The program has a clever importer that allows you to grab recipes from web pages and documents without having to type them in. Just before the meeting Robert had a problem with the program where it corrupted his database and lost some recipes, he’ll be reporting this to the author.
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Meeting Report: 12th March 2010
Posted: March 17th, 2010
In our news section members discussed more about Apple’s iPad and the changes to the Mac Developer programme. We also talked about Valve bringing their Steam game distribution platform and popular game titles to the Mac.
Dave, our resident indie Mac developer, then demonstrated his recently released privacy application called Tiptoe. This handy app allows users to run many popular applications with “private browsing” like privacy which stops traces of user activity such as recent items and history from being recorded.
Nigel then showed us Evernote, a comprehensive note taking system which stores your notes in the cloud so they can be accessed from the web, PC or Mac software and applications for popular mobile devices including the iPhone. Members were particularly impressed with Evernote’s ability to recognise text (including hand written notes) in images so they could be indexed and searched.
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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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