April Meeting Notes
The April meeting started with the announcement of this month’s door prizes. The grand door prize was a year’s subscription to MacTech Magazine. Also, everyone present at the meeting received a free copy of the magazine. Dave explained how our monthly newsletter will be offered in blog format in the future. Introductions of those in attendance included their memories of April 1976 in honor of the 30th anniversary of Apple Computer. Some of our younger group members related their first experience with a Mac.
The next order of business is Apple News. An update to Tiger (OSX 10.4) was released. The latest version stands at 10.4.6. More and more software, including Apple’s “Pro Apps” are coming out in UB format to run on the new Intel-based Macs. The biggest news, however, was the release of Boot Camp. This software allows you to run Windows XP on a new Intel-based Mac. This software is, currently, in beta testing and will be included in the next OSX version that will be code-named Leopard. You must purchase a copy of Windows to install on your Mac and are advised to install all security updates from Microsoft and make use of anti-virus and spyware software for your protection. Mike provided a short demonstration of Boot Camp and booting into Windows on his MacBook Pro. It is not possible to access files on the Mac partition while booted in Windows and visa-versa. Therefore, the Mac OS partition cannot be infected by malware. Apple will never condone the use of Mac OS on a PC.
The night’s main topic is about torrents. A torrent is a fast and efficient method to distribute files via the internet. Common uses of torrents are for music, movies and software. One of the most well known torrent applications is BitTorrent. BitTorrent is not browser-based. It is a separate application that allows you download movies, etc… There is no central server for BitTorrent. Files, and parts of files, are downloaded from multiple sources and the parts you have downloaded are, in turn, made available to the “swarm” of people downloading the same file. Only files that are requested are uploaded from your computer. No one can browse your hard drive for other files. The software handles the file transfers. A vast amount of legal software, music and videos are available via BitTorrent. The best way to search for files available via BitTorrent is with Google. The first thing you do is to download a torrent file from a “tracker” site. A torrent file is like a bookmark. It’s a very small file that tells the BitTorrent software where to find and download the media file. Torrents only work with broadband internet connections. It is considered polite to leave your torrent software running so that you can share what you have downloaded. Videos are mostly in the Windows AVI format and can be played back using the VLC player. Mike showed a video (the famous1984 Mac commercial) that he had downloaded via BitTorrent.
General questions included: What is the Mac version of CRTL+ALT+DELETE (Windows) to quit programs that have crashed? The answer is; Command+Option+Escape will open the Force Quit box. Can a two-button mouse be used on a Mac? Yes, any USB mouse will work. Also, holding down the single mouse button or using the Control+Mouse Click combination will give you the appropriate right-click menu.
The next meeting’s topic will be on Microsoft Office.
