South Essex Apple Link is an Apple user group run by enthusiasts with a collective deep understanding of the Apple technologies and its user community. SEAL welcomes Mac, iPod, iPhone, iPad and Apple TV users across the whole of Essex and surrounding areas.
We are currently meeting online every four weeks, for more details see our About page.
Next meeting: Friday 10th July 2026
The December SEAL meeting was held on Friday the 12th of December 2014. As this was the last meeting before Christmas, members brought various festive foods which were enjoyed by everyone. Thanks to all who contributed.
During the news section we discussed Apple’s Best of iTunes 2014, this included the brain training app Elevate. DaveK downloaded Elevate and gave an impromptu demonstration of the initial evaluation.
Robert then held an Apple quiz with questions from across Apple’s history and products. For the second year running Ben scored the most points with his encyclopaedic knowledge of Apple history.
Ben also brought along two colourful clamshell iBooks from his collection to show us. Interestingly these older Macs can still run OS X up to 10.4 Tiger.
Mick brought along his MacBook Pro for help with a memory upgrade. Upgrading to 8GB from the 2GB he had using DIMMs from Crucial was straightforward, simply requiring the bottom case to be unscrewed (Apple provides clear instructions). After the upgrade a performance improvement was immediately noticeable with applications loading much faster.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from everyone at SEAL!
The November SEAL meeting was held on Friday the 14th of November 2014.
DaveK gave a great demonstration of Cheetah3D, a 3D graphics application made specifically for the Mac. Dave started by covering the basic controls and concepts to give beginners a starting point when following the many tutorials available on-line. He them demonstrated modelling and rendering a mug.
Dave has kindly made his notes for the Cheetah3D demo available.
He’s also made a Cheetah3D keyboard shortcut cheat sheet.
Robert gave a quick overview of some of the new features in MacOS 10.10 Yosemite which was released during October. Some of the more interesting things he pointed out where:
In our News section we discussed Apple’s announcements from their October media event:
Updated Mac mini
A couple of new security concerns were mentioned which highlight the need not to install software from unknown sources:
Wire Lurker - Mac malware that can install applications on a connected iOS device even if it’s not Jail broken.
Masque Attack - A method by which iOS applications downloaded from outside the App Store can masquerade as another trusted third party app (which may itself have come from the App Store).
The October SEAL meeting was held on Friday the 10th of October 2014.
DavidB brought along his new iPhone 6 so SEAL members were able to take a look at the latest model with its new larger screen and smooth rounded design and compare it to other member’s older iPhone models.
Ben gave us a demonstration of CameraBag an inexpensive photo editing application that can apply a wide range of filters to photos. A grid showing the effect of all the available filters on the current image allows you to easily pick one to apply. Each filter is editable to fine tune or completely change its effect and custom filters can be saved and shared with friends. CameraBag is available on the Mac App Store and also as a iOS App for the iPhone and iPad.
Mick had recently purchased a USB turntable similar to this one to transfer some Vinyl albums into a digital format on his Mac. The turntable didn’t come with specific Mac software but they did supply Audacity, a free and Open Source audio editor. At the meeting SEAL members helped Mick set-up the turntable and work out how to record from it in Audacity. This included choosing the correct audio input, setting the levels appropriately to avoid clipping and exporting as MP3 (which requires installing the separate LAME MP3 encoder).
Here’s a YouTube video from a different USB turntable manufacturer explaining the set-up and recording process:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1K_CW61OKTY
Using Audacity you can also record one side of an album in one go and then later split it into tracks. The procedure is explained in this You Tube video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jO7Y9OvFRGM
Our news discussion covered the following items:
The September SEAL meeting was held on Friday the 12th of September 2014.
The main topic of discussion was Apple’s recent announcements of the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus and the Apple Watch.
DavidK gave us an update on his work toward the SEAL App which he suggested at the August meeting. This month he had gave us a list of practical features, based on members suggestions, and outlined what’s likely to be possible in version 1.
We also discussed the recent news stories about celebrity photos being leaked and how many of the initial news stories singled out Apple and iCloud as the source. DavidK suggested the following articles that provide more comprehensive coverage of the story which in fact did not involve an iCloud vulnerability, did involve multiple different on-line data storage systems (not just iCloud) and has been occurring over several years:
Tidbits coverage of the story: iCloud Flaw Not Source of Celebrity Photo Theft
Information security researcher Nik Cubrilovic’s Notes on the Celebrity Data Theft explains how an underground network of people perform different roles to access private data.
The August SEAL meeting was held on Friday the 8th of August 2014. Here’s a summary of the main topics we discussed:
DavidK showed us this interesting iOS app from UCL and the Wellcome Trust which allows you to contribute to a scientific experiment by playing a range of simple games. The games test your memory, your impulsivity, your attention and decision making. The app includes information so you can learn about the neuroscience of everyday life. The Great Brain Experiment is free on the app store.
Robert then gave us some tips on sharing files with Windows users in a variety of different scenarios, such as sending them for viewing or collaborative editing.
When sharing files that don’t need to be edited, Robert pointed out that any Mac program that prints can save its output as a PDF. PDF files can be viewed on almost any computer and retain the formatting and fonts of the original document.
For collaborative editing where a document is being passed back and forth with multiple people making comments and changes, Robert recommended trying a cloud based application such as Apple’s iWork for iCloud (which works on both Mac and PC) or Google Docs.
One of the potential area of confustion for Windows users are the additional metadata files that the Mac puts on PC formatted external drives (such as USB sticks) and in zip archives created on the Mac. This means PC users will see strange looking files such as .DS_Store among the files they expect. Robert suggested two utilities which can be used to remove these files:
In the news section we discussed:
Following on from our discussion of Mac OS X Yosemite last month, at the July meeting we talked about iOS 8. Discussion covered the major new features discussed at Apple’s press conference as well as a number of smaller improvements which beta testers have found. A list of these features is being compiled on the Mac Rumors forums here:
DavidK gave a short demonstration of how to create a dock icon for easy access to a web site or web-based application. By default web links are all given the same icon so David explained how to make a new custom icon for the link so it’s easily recognisable.
Robert described his (mostly positive) experiences in using DuckDuckGo as his regular search engine for the last month or so. Support for DDG was announced by Apple for Yosemite and iOS 8. Robert explained that DDG doesn’t record user’s visits or search history and doesn’t give customised search results, all features that some people may prefer. DDG can be added as a search option in Firefox and a Safari extension is available until support is added in Yosemite/iOS 8.
In the news section we discussed:
This meeting’s main topic was Apple’s recent announcements at WWDC, concentrating on the new version of Mac OS X, 10.10 Yosemite. We covered the major new features discussed at Apple’s press conference as well as a number of smaller improvements which beta testers have found. A list of these features is being compiled on the Mac Rumors forums here:
OS X 10.10 Yosemite: All The Little Things
There’s also a similar thread for iOS 8:
DavidK demoed the iOS game Smash Hit on his iPad. In the game you automatically move forward “into” the screen and have to smash glass obstacles with ball bearings to proceed. The game has a beautiful surreal art-style and music. Smash Hit is free to play and an in-app purchase allows you to skip levels you have already completed.
At the April meeting, Ben, a professional photographer, set up his iPhone 5S and took a time-lapse video of the entire meeting. Today Ben showed us the video, it was fun to see the meeting in a completely different way. The entire three hour meeting played back in about 90 seconds!
In the news section we discussed:
Apple’s recent purchase of Beats Audio.
The 2014 Apple Design Award winners.
Transcend’s new JetDrive Lite memory cards designed to fit flush into the SD card slots of Mac Book Air and Retina Mac Book Pro computers.
Moves Apple has made recently where they appear to be more open and “friendly” including looser NDA’s for developers, free session materials from WWDC and the public beta of Mac OS 10.10.
Apple getting a top rating in the recent Electronic Frontier Foundation “Who Has Your Back“ report on how companies deal with government requests for data..
Following on from the of the Who Has Your Back report and discussion of security, DavidB mentioned to general agreement that members should consider enabling 2-step verification on their Apple ID. This helps prevent your Apple account being taken over even if your password is compromised. Apple has an article explaining 2-step verification for further information.
At this meeting Robert gave a short presentation on managing Adobe Flash in your web browser. Flash is regularly subject to security issues (which are patched by Adobe) and now few popular sites require it. Robert showed how Flash can be disabled in browsers by default and then enabled only for the sites where it’s really needed. He’s written this up as a separate post, Tips & Tricks: Managing Flash.
DavidK gave a number of short demonstrations:
Paym is a new mobile payments service from UK banks that allows you to pay someone knowing only their mobile phone number. David explained how the service works and how you set it up with your bank. Once configured, payments can be made from your bank’s iOS app.
David then showed Fantastical, an iOS app (a Mac OS version is also available but has different functionality) that gives a combined view of the built-in reminders and calendar. Fantastical also lets you create calendar entries and reminders by entering the details in a natural way, either typed or spoken. For example you could enter “Lunch with Elon in Palo Alto on Friday” or “todo buy milk at 5pm” and the app will work out the time, date, location and subject and set-up the calendar entry or reminder.
In Numbers for iOS, the mobile version of Apple’s spreadsheet application, David discovered that you can create a data entry form to make filling in a table easier. To do this you tap the + button to create a new sheet but instead select New Form. Here all the columns for one row of the table are shown as entry boxes as if on a form. This makes it easier to fill out the required information. if you choose to add a new entry via the form a new row will automatically be added to the table. David noted that this feature is not available on the Mac OS version of Numbers. Details of this feature can be found in Apple’s Numbers for iPad help, in the Enter Data Using Forms section.
We also discussed the month’s Apple news, the main topics were:
This post is based on a presentation I gave at the May 2014 SEAL meeting.
Adobe Flash is an add-on for web browsers that enables them to display animated and interactive content, it is commonly used to display videos and animated advertisements. In recent years many sites have stopped using Flash and have moved to HTML 5 which does not need a browser plug-in. However there as still some high profiles sites which require Flash, good examples are TV catchup sites like the BBC iPlayer and 4oD.
Flash is regularly subject to security issues. While Adobe issues patches and Apple (and the other browser developers) aims to make its use as secure as possible, you may want to limit where you allow Flash to run. With many sites dropping the need for Flash, you probably only use a handful where it’s really required.
Here’s how Flash can be disabled in browsers and enabled only for the sites where it’s really needed. This improves performance on sites where Flash is used but not essential and reduces the risk if you happen to visit a site with malicious Flash content.
When you visit a website that uses Flash any Flash content will show the message “Flash blocked for this website”. To enable Flash for a particular site:
Sites which you have configured to run Flash are listed in preferences. To remove a site’s configuration so you are asked again:
Further details of this feature along with the definitions of the various options are available on Apple’s Safari: About Internet plug-in management page.
Robert gave a presenation about Podcasts which are ten years old this year. He covered what podcasts are, how to find podcasts you might find interesting and then how to organise and listen or watch. Some useful and interesting resources he mentioned are:
Ben showed us the Joby GripTight, a neat and inexpensive mount that clips onto you your iPhone (it’s universal and will also fit the iPod Touch and other smartphone models) to give it a standard tripod mount.
The main topic in the news discussion was the very serious Heartbleed security bug which has affects many web sites and was revealed in the last week. The current advice is to change your passwords on affected sites when those sites have been patched to fix the problem (and not before). It’s also a good idea to be wary of e-mails advising you to change your password and only ever do so by visiting affected sites directly (don’t follow links in e-mails just in case they are fraudulent). Here are a couple of articles with useful tips and lists of affected sites: