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The mini’app’les Newsletter is an independent publication not affiliated, sponsored, or sanctioned by Apple, Inc. or any other computer manufacturer. The opinions, statements, positions, and views are those of the author(s) or newsletter staff and are not intended to represent the opinions, statements, positions, or views of Apple, Inc. or any other computer manufacturer. Instead of placing a trademark symbol at every occurrence of a trade-marked name, we state we are using the names only in an editorial manner, to the benefit of the trademark owner, with no intention of infringement of the trademark.

mini’app’les Newsletter

the minnesota apple computer users’ group, inc.                                                                                    June 2008

Board of Directors

President    Bruce Thompson

    763-546-1088

Vice President    David Peck

    612-423-5711

Secretary    Harry Lienke

    651-457-6026

Treasurer    Don Walz

    651-426-5602

Membership Director    Chuck Hauge

    612-963-5064

Publications Director    John Pruski

    952-938-2818

SIG Director    Kevin Strysik

    65l-489-4691

Director at Large    Tom Gates

    612-789-1713

 

Membership    Erik Knopp

Coordinator

 

 

 

 

Deadline for material for the next newsletter is the first of the month. An article will be printed when space permits and, if in the opinion of the Newsletter Editor or Publications Director, it constitutes material suitable for publication.

 

 

 

From the Editor’s Desk:

 

 

 

 

 

Hope to see you at a meeting soon.

 

Harry Lienke

Members Helping Members

 

 

 

AppleWorks / ClarisWorks-Draw    3, 4

Classic Macs

Cross-Platform File Transfer    2

FileMaker Pro

Intel Based Macs

iMacs

iPhoto / iTunes / iMovie

Mac OS Classic    3

Mac OS X

Microsoft Excel    2, 5, 8

Microsoft Word    2, 8

MYOB    5

Networks    7

New Users    1

PhotoShop

QuarkXPress    8

Quicken    5

QuickBooks and QuickBooks Pro    5

VectorWorks    6

 

 

 

mini’app’les Election Results

by Les Anderson

 

Erik Knopp and Les Anderson counted the ballots on May 2, 2008. There were 26 ballots submitted, of which 25 were declared valid.

 

Results were as follows:

iWork/AppleWorks SIG of May, 2008

by Harry Lienke

 

No iWork or AppleWorks questions were posed to open the SIG meeting so Harry Lienke reported on some experimenting he did with Pages and Word compatibility (the bylaws require the Secretary to store all club documents in a format compatible with either Pages or TextEdit).

 

Turns out that the Word format (.doc) and RTF documents exported by Pages have some errors in them and neither Word nor Pages can read the files and produce a document identical to the original Pages document (header font changes, headers and footers appear in the wrong place or disappear, and/or margins are reset to default values). Although RTF documents saved by Word are read by Word without error, Pages loses the document’s formatting when it reads the file. The only file read by both Pages and Word without error is a Word format file saved by Word.

 

Pam Lienke showed how Pages can be used to create electronic scrapbook pages. Starting with a blank document she selected a square shape and expanded it to cover the document; the shape was then filled to create a colored background for the page. Pam next dragged two JPEG-format pictures of grandchildren onto the page; the pictures were framed, sized, and positioned on the page. Some text boxes with explanatory text were added, sized, and positioned on the page. The finishing touch was the addition of a variety of shapes in various sizes and colors.

mini’app’les Multi-SIG Meeting & Member’s Workshop, April 19, 2008

By Chuck Hauge

 

About 30 mini’app’les members had quite the time at the recent Multi-SIG (Special Interest Group) meeting, the first we’ve had in many years!

 

Yugma, a local company providing on-line collaboration and remote access services, presented at the opening session. Thanks to Jonah Cagley and Connie Gelhaus for the presentation and for the coffee. Their presentation impressed many attendees, including the Executive Director from Habitat for Humanity who stopped by to see Yugma demonstrated. She stated this could be a remarkable tool for Habitat affiliates around the state of Minnesota. It could reduce costs and allow Habitat to make training easily available by recording the sessions and allowing others to play them when it is convenient.

 

Jonah and Connie stepped through many aspects of the Yugma software. One unique item is its platform independence. This means it doesn’t matter if some people have Mac OS, others Windows, and still others have Linux; they can all work together. Yugma recently rolled out a new release of their system and is constantly improving their system. One area they are working on is more closely tying Yugma with Skype, an on-line audio service. The great thing is the software is all on-line, meaning you don’t have to pay for upgrades; upgrades are automatically delivered to you when they are available.

 

Another impressive feature is the zero-configuration requirement for end-users. With the “Pro” features all one needs to do is click the link sent to you. After you type in an account ID and password, you’re part of the presentation group! In rare cases there may be some bumps if you are behind a fancy firewall or you have very aggressive anti-virus software, but Yugma can assist with getting around the issues.

 

One last feature I was very impressed with is the ability to take control of a user machine. This is perfect for trouble-shooting remotely, and since it is platform independent, a person with a Mac can support a person with a PC or vice-versa, anywhere in the world, as long as both have a broadband Internet connection. The only way to take control of another machine is if the user on the other end “allows” it, so it’s totally safe.

 

Jonah and Connie also provided attendees with two-month Pro-10 trial usage cards. This entitles members to use the professional version of Yugma software absolutely free for two months from the date of initial sign-up. They also have a free version of Yugma, but several of the features are disabled, and you can have a maximum of ten users participating in a presentation.

 

Chuck Hauge presented the notion of a Digital Life SIG that would cover everything not covered by our other SIGs, and do it in a fashion of more traditional teacher-led sessions. Digital Life, in a nutshell, is the integration of humans and technology and is a phrase coined by our beloved leader, Steve Jobs. We want to build on the excitement around Apple and their products and bring people together to present on what they know, love, and use.

 

 

Three of our SIGs met (after all, it was a Multi-SIG meeting):  Mac OS X, Q&A, and iWork/AppleWorks. At our Mac OS X SIG, the topic was the iPhone. Bob Demeules showed part of the iPhone software development kit (SDK) conference video presented by Apple and Steve Jobs. At the iWork/AppleWorks session, Pam Lienke demonstrated setting up a presentation using Keynote, one of the components in iWork. At the Q&A SIG Les Anderson dealt with sending a text document as an e-mail attachment that PC users could read.

 

There were club member experts helping to solve computer issues on-site for other members who brought their computers to the event. We had questions and resolutions for things from OS installations to iTunes, Mail, and iPhoto. We also know many members have books, software, and other Apple related materials, so there was a book/software exchange available. For the next Multi-SIG meeting, bring things you may not need but others might find useful. Keep recycling alive!

 

 

If you attended the Multi-SIG meeting, please let the Board members know what you thought, what you liked, and how the meeting could be improved. If you didn’t attend, please let the Board members know what they can do to entice you to attend the next multi-SIG meeting.

Getting Started With Forumer.com

by Pam and Harry Lienke

 

The Minnesota Apple Computer Users’ Group, the mini’app’les, has established a bulletin board service (BBS) using the facilities of forumer.com. Everyone is encouraged to make use of the BBS to ask and answer questions that cannot wait until the next Special Interest Group (SIG) meeting. Although guests can make use of this new BBS, mini’app’les members have some special privileges and, so, should register as members to take advantage of those privileges.

 

The registration process begins when you click the “Register” text button at the right just under the “mini’app’les forums” heading. At the click of that text button, a new window appears; this window contains the registration agreement terms. If you agree to the terms and conditions, you need to click the appropriate line under that text to proceed. The next window asks you to enter your registration information and set your initial preferences (see Figure 2).

 

You must enter a username and password. The username need not be (but can be) your given name; two usernames currently in use are Ottertail and Huntn. An email address is required as part of the Registration Information because that is how the administrators communicate with individual members and how you are informed if you have received a Private Message from another member. To keep the nasty folks who patrol the Internet from accessing your account, your password should be at least eight characters long and should be a combination of lower case letters, upper case letters, numbers, and special characters. The Confirmation Code is used to prevent the software of those nasty folks from registering automatically and thus save much grief and work for our forum administrator. The default values shown for the Preferences are quite sensible and can be accepted as is; the preferences can be changed once you have been registered as a mini’app’les member. After you have established your Registration Information and Preferences, click the “Submit” button at the bottom of the window. This sends a message to our friendly administrators telling them you would like to be registered for the mini’app’les forums.

Forumer requires you to click in the text box for the username first. Then enter the username and password you provided when you registered and click the “Log in” button; if you forgot the username and/or password or you are unable to log in, check the first email you received for the correct information or click the “I forgot my password” text button to get an email with your username and a new password. Once you have entered the correct information, you are taken to the screen shown in Figure 4.

 

Click the name of the message (“Welcome” in this case) and a new window appears, allowing you to read the Private Message (the new window is not shown here). The message may indicate you were placed in the Guests group and ask you to identify yourself if you are a member; if so, click either of the “Post Reply” buttons in the window and, in the “Reply to a private message” window, enter a message identifying yourself to the administrator (this window is not shown here); click the “Submit” button after your message has been entered. An interim window appears for a short time before you are returned to the window of Figure 4. At this point, you may access the messages in the forums by clicking on the “Miniapples Forum Index” text button in the middle of the window, point your browser at a different web site, or quit your browser.

After you have received an email from the administrator indicating you may now access the BBS with all the privileges and responsibilities of a member, you can log in by navigating to the web site as described at the start of this article to the window shown in Figure 1. Click the “Log in” text button next to the “Register“ text button and a window like that of Figure 3 appears. Enter your username and password as before and click the “Log in” button. A window similar to Figure 1 appears; any forum with a message you have not read has a green apple next to it.

 

Happy browsing!

Figure 1.  mini’app’les forumer.com Starting Window

Figure 2.  Registration Window

Figure 3.  Logging in to Check a Private Message

Figure 4.  Accessing Private Messages

Safe Storage of Your Vital Information

by Harry Lienke

 

There is much information the experts say you should keep in a convenient, but secure, place. The information includes Social Security numbers, credit card numbers, checking and savings account numbers, household inventory, and driver’s license numbers; this is just a sampling of the data about your life that should be collected, saved, and protected.

 

This data can be stored in one or more files on your Macintosh computer, but how secure is your Mac? Typically, folks tend to let the Mac OS log on to their account automatically when they turn the power on or restart their Mac. This leaves all your files vulnerable to anyone who wanders by your computer; in addition, it makes it easy for a thief to access all those files after pilfering your computer. Even if you set up your account to require a password to log on, a thief can either use an installation disk to reset your passwords or use another computer to access data on your hard drive. Without some additional protection, your data is vulnerable while it is on your Mac.

 

One possibility to safeguard your valuable data is to use one of the many shareware applications designed to store that data in an encrypted database. This is a viable alternative, but it requires that you pay a shareware fee; why use a shareware application when there are good, free alternatives?

 

One possibility with no cost is the FileVault capability of Mac OS X. You can protect all the data in your Home folder with FileVault; one disadvantage of using FileVault is that it protects everything in your Home folder, possibly including all your photos and music. You may find that you need a hard disk to back up your data for storage off-premises. An easier solution is to store all your important data in an encrypted form that allows you to back up that data on CDs or DVDs you can store in a safe deposit box, in your desk or locker at work, or on a shelf at Aunt Polly’s house. You can use Apple’s Disk Utility to create this vault for your data.

 

 

In the following paragraphs information contained in square brackets [like this] represents menu items to be selected, information to be entered, and/or actions to be taken. Open the Disk Utility program located within the Utilities folder that lies within the Applications folder on your hard drive. Open the Disk Utility’s File menu and create a disk image file [File-New-Blank Disk Image] (see Figure 1) about the same size as a CD-ROM [Size = 660 MB] with encryption enabled [Encryption = AES-128] and a read/write disk image format [Format: read/write disk image]; also specify you want the disk image created on your [Desktop], not, for example, in the Documents folder (see Figure 2).

 

 

 

Figure 1. Creating the Disk Image

 

 

 

 

   Figure 2. Disk Image Attributes                                                Figure 3. Password Entry

 

After you provide a name for your new disk image file and volume [Save As: MyData, for example] and click on the Create button, Disk Utility asks for a password (see Figure 3). Provide a very strong password: at least 10 characters long using numbers, lower and upper case letters, and special characters. Do not use easily available information about you and your family. You will not be able to retrieve your data if you forget the password; the password should be memorable for you but, to provide good protection, very difficult for others to guess. If you would like the Mac OS X Password Assistant to help select a password, click on the button that is located to the far right of the “Password:” prompt (it has a key on it). The Password Assistant generates a variety of passwords but even the “Memorable” passwords are probably going to be less memorable than a password you generate yourself.

 

Do not allow the password to be Remembered or Added into the Keychain [click on the Check Mark if one is present to delete it]; if you allow the password to be Remembered, you have weakened your security to the level of any password you use to sign on to your computer. If you write your password down, keep the piece of paper well away from the data you are trying to protect — in a safe deposit box or a relative's house, for example, but not located near your Mac or in the same place you are storing your back-up data. After you enter the password and click on the OK button, Disk Utility creates a desktop disk image file with the name you specified and a suffix of “.dmg” (MyData.dmg, for example) with the protected volume residing within the disk image. The disk image file and the protected volume are shown on the far left side of the Disk Utility window (see Figure 4).

 

 

 

          Figure 4. Files in Disk Utility                                             Figure 5. Disk Image and Protected Volume

 

 

Whenever the disk image is closed and you need to read from or write to the protected volume, double-click on the disk image and you are asked for the password; after you have entered the password, a volume with the name you specified (MyData, for example) appears on your desktop. As mentioned above, use the volume like a standard hard disk volume. After you have finished reading and/or writing, make sure you eject the volume (control-click on its icon and select Eject [Eject “MyData”, for example] from the menu that appears) so no one can access it without the password; if you leave the volume sitting open on the desktop, anyone can access its data and you have defeated the purpose for creating an encrypted disk image.

 

To back up the data to a CD-ROM, close the protected volume (if it is open) by ejecting it so no icon with the volume’s name is showing on the desktop. Insert a blank CD in the CD-ROM drive and let the Finder handle the processing of the blank disk [Action: Open Finder and click the OK button]. Give the blank CD an appropriate name by clicking twice (two separate clicks, not a double-click) on the blank CD’s name, “Untitled CD”, and entering a new name (for example, Backup20080410). Drag the .dmg file to the icon of the blank CD and then click on the icon of the blank disk to select it. Tell the Finder to burn the CD [File-Burn Disc...]. This process makes a back-up disk which is also encrypted.

 

To access the data on the back-up CD, insert the CD into the CD-ROM drive and, after the CD’s icon appears, double-click on it. A window showing the disk image file (MyData.dmg, for example) appears; double-click on the disk image file to begin opening it. Mac OS X asks for the password of the disk image file; enter the password to finish opening the protected volume (MyData, for example). You can now access any of the data on the volume. Your data is secure on the back-up disk because your password is required to open the disk image.

 

I have a set of CD-RW disks I use for back-ups on a rotating basis. Once a month or so I erase the data on the oldest disk and re-write it with the latest data. I keep a couple of disks at home and the remaining back-ups off-premises so my data is conveniently located but protected against catastrophes.