LAUG 2.0 News

If you are like most people, you have several web sites you check daily; sites that get updated frequently, such as blogs, new music release sites, or Mac rumor boards. If you are the obsessive type, you might even check some sites several times a day, just to see if something new got posted. Imagine how nice it would be if somehow all your favorite web sites notified you when something new came around. In a nutshell, that is the idea behind the program NetNewsWire, and if you surf the web more then five minutes a day, it will change your life!

NetNewsWire uses a technology called RSS (short for Really Simple Syndication) to work its magic. RSS feeds are simply special URLs that get updated whenever a particular web page is changed. NetNewsWire keeps track of these feeds automatically and lets you know when new information gets posted to a web site on your watch list. After initially telling NetNewsWire what sites to track (a process as simple as clicking a link in your web browser) the rest is automatic. When web sites are updated, NetNewsWire lets you know and if you are interested in reading the new posting, you can simply click a headline to view the new information. In practice,this is as intuitive and easy as reading email.

In fact, if you have ever used email, you’ll find NetNewsWire very familiar. It has a beautiful and easy-to-use interface, laid out similar to most popular email programs, with a list of sites you are watching on the left side (where an email application shows all the mailboxes). Clicking on any site name will show you a list of postings, with new posts showing up in bold, once again similar to how email works. Click any subject to view the full web page. NetNewsWire will actually display the web page itself, using the same technology Apple’s own Safari uses. NetNewsWire will check for updated web sites on a schedule you set and once you start using it,it will really change how you use the web. NetNewsWire lets you become lazy, in a good way. News and web sites come to you, automatically. Surfing the web becomes both more efficient and more fun.

If you only used NetNewsWire to keep track of favorite web sites, it would be well worth the shareware fee. However, as you become a more experienced user, you will likely find that many of NetNewsWire’s extra features really make your internet experience even better. NetNewsWire can keep track of podcasts (which are actually just a special kind of RSS feed) and send them to iTunes. A very useful synchronization function uses .Mac to automatically sync your preferences and subscription list between two or more computers. You can also create “smart lists” of web sites to track, which works similar to smart playlists in iTunes.

NetNewsWire is one of the finest shareware applications written for the Mac. Apple’s own RSS reader, built in to Safari, pales in comparison. You pretty much cannot go wrong with NetNewsWire; it will save you time and make your web experience much better. The software comes with a 30-day fully-functional demo period so you can try it yourself, and then wonder how you lived without it.

Pro: An elegant,well-written application that will change how you use your computer.
Con: None
$24.95

http://ranchero.com/

5 out of 5 dog cows

Do you ever notice when reading some product manual, there are these little grey boxes in the margin that mentions a tip or trick. You read it and think, “Hey, that’s great.” This is a book all about those kind of tips.

I liked the fact that the book was a series of these short tips. I get interrupted easily, and the tips only take about a minute to read. I could easily start and stop the book without losing my place. I recommend reading it near the computer, because you really need to apply the tip if it’s useful to you, not just read about it.

Kelby walks you through all aspects of Tiger and a majority of iLife. However, this is not a book for novices or people that haven’t used Tiger for awhile. The reader should have a basic understanding of Tiger to understand how his tips will save you time. I wouldn’t quite call the tips “Killer”, but simply very useful. Maybe the author tried to call it very useful, and then marketing hyped it up to call it killer.“Killer tips”sounds better.

Personally, I knew a third of the tips because I use Tiger so much. Another third of the tips had no relevance to me, such tips related to sending and receiving faxes. However, the final third of tips were great and more than worth the price of the book. Often, it was just a simple item that might save a few minutes each day. For example, I never tried dragging the dashboard icon out of the dock. Never really thought about it, but my dock is pretty full, and since I can just press F12 to activate dashboard, it was wasted space on my Dock. Other tips I enjoyed were all the ideas about customizing the Finder or Spotlight searches. Sure I knew them, but didn’t really think about how moving things around would save me a few minutes each day.

Some of the tips were really cool, combining many of tiger’s hidden functions into practical “gee whiz” projects. An example of one of the more interesting tips was how, in a few short mouse clicks and an iSight camera, you can turn your Mac into a home surveillance webcam.

One of Tiger’s most powerful and underutilized features is Automator. While Automator is complex, I would have liked to have seen tips on some easy ways to write workflows.

Pros: Great, time saving and cool tips useful to anyone that works with Tiger. Highly recommend it for someone who uses Tiger on a regular basis, even people who think they are experts.
Cons: I wouldn’t quite call them “killer” tips, falls short on Automator.

5 out of 5 dog cows

The last meeting of the Lawrence Apple User’s group unfortunately had to compete with one of the biggest snowfalls we’ve seen in a generation. After the Board chatted, Dave determined that it was too late to get the word out about the meeting cancellation, and we’d have the meeting even if it was Dave talking with himself. This is the second time a meeting of our user group has had weather problems. We’ve set the policy that, like many other businesses, our meetings will be cancelled if USD 497 (Lawrence schools) closes.

In spite of the weather, we had six people attend. I doubt if a PC group could say that. We were unable to obtain the equipment to do a podcast this month. Our speaker, David Chutka, was a representative of the Apple store on the Plaza. David walked us through the entire product line. It reminded us a bit like Goldilocks and the 3 bears. In most of the product lines, there seemed to be a papa, mama, and baby.

The baby Mac is the Mac Mini. David recommends this model to people who are interested in the Mac, but not quite ready to fully commit. Since it doesn’t come with a monitor or keyboard, he generally thinks it’s a poor choice to replace an existing desktop Mac. This model is ideal for switchers or people who want an extra Mac around.

The middle of the road Mac is the iMac, and is the Mac David generally recommends to most of the people that come into the Apple store. It is a clear value and an extremely popular model because it comes with a monitor, webcam, keyboard, mouse, and a full software suite.

The papa bear is the PowerMac G5. The PowerMac G5 is insanely fast and…well….powerful. It requires the purchase of a additional monitor. However, it is highly expandable and supports a large amount of ram and expansion slots. Most people who buy the PowerMac are the graphic artists or digital imaging professionals that need the raw power.

The Mac portable line has two basic choices of the iBook and Powerbook. Similar to the differences in the desktop Macs, most people would do fine with an iBook. David sees the base Powerbook as not a great value. For iBooks, David suggested the 14-inch model, which for a bit more money then the base model gives you a bigger screen and a DVD burner.

For the iPod line,we have the basic Shuffle which is great for working out or as a starter iPod due to its durability and relative low cost. Moving up, there’s the Nano, which is very cool looking and also uses flash memory, making it good for an active lifestyle. The top of the line iPod uses a small hard disk to give you tons of storage and it can also play videos, making it good for audiophiles with large music collections.

David discussed the “battery myth” about iPods. While it’s true that any battery loses its ability to hold a charge over time, the Apple geniuses will replace any battery that goes bad during the warranty period (or longer if you have AppleCare). Even if the warranty has expired, Apple will replace the battery for a relatively inexpensive price if it fails.

Finally David discussed the advantages of buying at the Apple store. Unlike other places or the internet, you can walk in to the Apple store with money and walk out with a product in your hands. The store works hard to make sure they have plenty of stock of even the most popular Apple products. He also reminded us that people affiliated with education institutions can get their discount directly from the Apple store, giving people another option of where to buy Apple hardware and software.

We also discussed the advantages of purchasing Apple’s extended warranty, AppleCare. AppleCare extends your Apple warranty from one to three years and your free phone support from 90 days to three years. One of the under-promoted perks of AppleCare is when you purchase an Apple Monitor at the same time as your CPU, both items are covered for the same price. The relative value of this warranty somewhat depends on the model being purchased, but it is generally a very good value for fragile items like PowerBooks and not a good value for inexpensive Macs such as Mac Minis.

The December meeting was very informative and was a good help for those of us heading into the holiday buying season with some cash burning a hole in our wallets and Apple toys on our minds.