meeting-recap

Thanks to Lauren for most of the notes: As most of you know, last night was the first official meeting with our new presidents. JT presided over this meeting, and I would like to be the first to say "Thank You".

As a quick aside, I'll mention that Lauren (our Treasurer) posted to the list that November's meeting was pretty monumental, what with the changing of the guard with our president(s). But we also had a local company share their FIN, a product that they make for Mac laptops. As Lauren put it,

They raffled off a couple of their products which is an All-In-One Handle and Stand designed specifically for the many of the Mac laptop models. Please visit their website and check it out.

In the midst of winter weather, we had another "split meeting" Wednesday night, with me (Cheryl) hosting the online contingent, which counted two participants who had a lovely time. Lauren provided the list with a thorough run-down of the main meeting. (Thanks, Lauren!) This was a no-scheduled speaker meeting (it being an odd month). Here's an abbreviated version:

Started with talk of lack of the wireless internet (which is why we outliers on iChat couldn't poke our nose into everything).

We had a new sort of meeting last night! Lauren and Jason were at the usual venue (Fuddruckers) while Cheryl (that's me!) helmed the stay-at-homes and set up an iChat room (in iChat: File > Go to Chat Room...). Lauren reports that while they didn't have the Clearwire modem last night, he and Jason set up some local Bonjour networks and there was chatting to be had -- though they couldn't meet up with the stay-at-homes.

Our November meeting (12 Nov.) was a casual-structure, no-presenter as planned. Here are some notes from Lauren.

Very informal meeting for the most part. Individual discussions as to how things done.

Our October meeting on the 8th ("the second Wednesday") was a pretty good one. No blaring music and plenty of good camaraderie. It being an "even-number" month, there was a prepared presentation -- this one on RSS (what the heck is it and how do I take advantage on my Mac?).

Our meeting last night was the first in our new series wherein odd-numbered months are an unstructured meeting and even-numbered months have a defined topic and presenter. We started with a 'round the room introduction of ourselves, telling a bit about what we use our Macs for, or how we got started with Macs. An impromptu demo of Garage Band got several of us quite interested in exploring more.

This month's theme was audio-visual.

Mainly, Rik shared how to how to RIP DVD's to your computer...and to the Apple TV Box (which costs about $230. for 40 Gig size, or a larger size for more). The Apple TV can house many movies for safe-keeping and viewing later. He showed us how to use Popcorn, FastMac, and the Handbrake program and how long it can take to do this depending on the variables. These can extract and burn (copy) the file onto a DVD, onto your computer, or onto the Apple TV. Also explained the free 'MacTheRipper' program which is quite fast.

Hi gang - you missed a fun time tonight we had burgers, brats, corn on the cob, salads, cookies, ice cream and great fellowship. We even talked some MAC talk. A very big thank you to Lauren and Jason for all their hard work and great cooking and to Jim for the Dove ice cream. We'll be back to the third friday next month hope to see you there -Rik

There was no fixed program, which might be a good thing because no one there could figure out how to use the ceiling-mounted projector. So, we just started sharing favorite tips. One was a nifty widget called iStat Pro, which displays battery data, temperatures from various parts of the Mac, and other good things.