May Meeting

by Marshall Ahern marshallahern@clubmac.org.au

Over fifty members turned up on June 11 to see the latest in digital photographic reproduction from Epson Australia. Unfortunately, Peter North from Epson had a serious scheduling problem and cancelled at 5:05pm. This is the lot of social clubs trying to organise meetings with busy commercial people, so we had to make do at short notice.

Perhaps serendipitously, this development afforded the membership the opportunity to discuss in some detail the recent changes to the Club's email arrangements and other changes to the BBS/Website. There was widespread support for the suggestion that the Club send all members written email account set-up directions by snail mail, either on paper or CD.

Several questions were asked where the answer was not immediately available but the appropriate Club official undertook to pursue the answer:
• Where a member's password is the membership number, can it be altered?
• Can we send attachments with the Club's Webmail? Answer: Yes, look for the Browse button at the bottom of the email form
• How can you send an automatic reply on eBay?
• How does one use the Macinations Index? Answer: Look here

John Agapitos, the Club Mac Sysop, showed us the mail set-up in detail. He explained the correct content and format for all the fields, being email address, incoming mail server, desired protocol, user name, password and outgoing mail server. This procedure will be formalised and provided to members in writing and illustration. John pointed out that members setting up for system software before OS X must insert the domain name server and the search domain.

Darryl Chrisp, the Club Administrator (and our in-house commando) was able to provide a temporary Internet connection via the Johnson Hall and then log onto the Club website. The speed of the site has been increased by the recent changes and the optimisation of the use of the ADSL line. We saw new features of the members' area and details of the access procedures.

All in all, a very timely housekeeping Club Meeting. Thanks to the members who helped out at short notice.

May Meeting

Apple's new Business Development Manager, Marcus Annett, came along to our May Club meeting to show us all that's new from Apple. He started talking at 6:35pm and was still going at 9:10pm, admittedly with the assistance of much interested feedback from the floor. Marcus's day job involves him in putting his boundless energy into helping the Authorised Dealers sell the Apple product line. He brought all that energy to our meeting.

Marcus outlined the features of Apple's newest professional production programs being DVD Studio Pro and Final Cut Pro 4. These two programs are getting more and more powerful and run only on the Mac. They enable entertainment professionals to produce public release sound and movies that would have required over $100,000 worth of editing equipment only three years ago. Version 4 of Final Cut Pro introduces enhanced industrial-strength editing tools and brings a price reduction of $100.

Marcus sees an important future for Apple's two new on-line services, iTunes Music Store and .Mac (pronounced "dot Mac"). iTunes Music Store, available only in the USA at this stage, offers legal downloads of thousands of popular songs using MP2 and newer compression formats for $US 0.99 per song. Significant copyright arrangements have to be made before iTunes Music Store can be made available here, but the industry body, ARIA, is in favour. .Mac is Apple's web hosting service for Mac users. Marcus claims it offers $500 worth of Internet services such as email, webmail, on-line backup and website tools for $189 per year, and a 60 day free trial.

The hardware news is the new 30 Gb iPod and the new range of LCD monitors at significantly lower prices. The new iPod is truly astounding. For less than one thousand dollars one gets 30 Gb of mobile Firewire storage, a contacts and appointment manager and an extraordinary music machine. Marcus brought 7,500 songs on his iPod and was able to play them in wonderful stereo sound. Then he played them on another Mac connected wirelessly via Bluetooth. Marcus then diverted to show how a Mac could interact with a Bluetooth-capable mobile phone. With his phone switched off and in his back pocket, he was able receive and send SMS messages and even respond to an incoming voice call.

Marcus is excited about Apple's new range of LCD monitors. The entry level 17 inch, 1280 x 1024 pixels, is equivalent to other manufacturer's 21 inch models. Like its two bigger brothers, it is all-digital, one-cable and costs $1,500. The whole range is leading edge technology and amazing value. Apple's 23 inch LCD monitor is nearly four thousand dollars cheaper than Samsung's 24 inch unit.

And at five past nine, Marcus started on OS X. Many thanks Marcus, come again.