Kachemacs Mac User Group » Meeting Minutes

July BBQ

Ryan — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 22:01:49 +0000

Instead of a regular monthly meeting at the library, the Kachemacs decided to party it up for the 4th of July and had a cookout at Bishop’s Beach. It was a beautiful, sunny day, but the stiff sea breeze made it a bit chilly.

Ole, Brent, and Ron keep the hot dogs protected. At one point while we were all eating, a raven swooped down, landed on the grill, and stole one of the dogs.

Julie and Ginger huddle for warmth.

Diane shows off her hula-hooping skills. Anything to keep warm!

Julie takes a turn with the hoop.

Michael, expecting an inside meeting at the library and finding a note to come to the cookout instead, shows us what happens when you come under-dressed to a mid-summer barbecue in Homer.

Diane tells everyone a story about an encounter with a mad squirrel.

If you missed it, we’ll do it again next year!

December meeting minutes

kachemacs — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 07:48:58 +0000

Thanks to all who came to the Kachemacs meeting in December. I hope you are all keeping touch with everyone using the social networking skills you all learned. Thanks, Mob, for leading our discussion this month. As you all may know, this website incorporates a WordPress blog into it. It’s easy and free to join many of these services, so why not try?

November meeting minutes

kachemacs — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 23:21:32 +0000

It seems it’s better late than never to post the minutes from the last meeting. We had a surprisingly good turnout for the evening of our Presidential election. Kachemacs member Ryan Ridge of Bigwoofs Technology taught us all how to do preventive maintenance on our Macs. Hopefully all our machines are running smoother after Ryan’s presentation. We also had Kachemacs t-shirts for sale so that members can get the word out about Mac and the Kachemacs!
Next month we will be learning about social networking from teen member Mob Sirijaratwong. Mob will show us how to keep in touch and share media with our friends and families using the internet on our Macs and iPhones. We hope to see you all there on December 2nd!

October's guest event

kachemacs — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 23:22:32 +0000

Despite fierce competition with the political debate on Tuesday the 7th of October, there was a full meeting room at the library for the Kachemacs guest event. Andrew Welch, president of Ambrosia Software came all the way from New York State to show and tell some of the products available from his company. It was such an opportunity to meet a Mac developer in person at one of our meetings way up here in Homer.

Andrew provided us with many copies of the demo DVD with all the company’s software on it to use for free for 30 days. I have plenty of extras if anyone missed out. When any of the Kachemacs choose to purchase Ambrosia Software products for the Mac from the website, use coupon code AKMUG20. The code will be valid for one month from our meeting date, or just long enough to get addicted to the demo software.

We also discussed the need for another drop-in session at the library. On Saturday, October 25, the library opens at 10AM. We will occupy one of the group study rooms along the perimeter of the main library. Anyone who drops in will be able to discuss Mac in a less formal setting than the Tuesday meetings. This is a perfect opportunity for Mac beginners to get some hands on help. I personally will be there until 3PM, but other members can stay until the library throws them out at 6PM.

Backing Up and June meeting

kachemacs — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 06:13:42 +0000

Thanks to all who attended the June meeting of the Kachemacs! I hope everyone has instituted a backup procedure for their Macs. The foremost point I wanted to make is that hard drives DO fail an one time or another, and to be ready for it saves a lot of aggravation.
We have decided to adjourn until September, which will be the day after Labor Day. Macs are great, but I hope the Kachemacs have other interests outdoors during the summer.
If you missed the meeting, you can find the Keynote residing on the /Public folder on the Kachemacs dot Mac account. If you get a login prompt, just cancel it out. You will then be able to download archives of Meeting Companion Guides by clicking on the little arrow on the right. Unpack the archives using StuffIt Expander (free download.)
See you in September!

Paperless Home Office seminar

kachemacs — Wed, 07 May 2008 07:12:26 +0000

Thanks to all who attended the May Kachemacs meeting.
In business, we discussed taking July off. This sounds reasonable to me. If the Kachemacs want, we can just have fun and have a barbeque for those who are not busy working. June event will be backups.
We also have a bit of money. It is sitting on a PayPal account which is accepting donations. Due to the library contract I sign to get the room, we can’t charge in the meeting so if you want to donate use the PayPal.
If we become an official non-profit, we can get a break on bank fees for our account. Ginger has offered to help with the process. The first thing we need to do is have officers. We will be holding elections in June, so anyone who would like to lend a hand get your name in there. We need a president, treasurer, and secretary (webmaster) at least.
We learned all about managing a home office with shareware Mac applications. The green aspect of eliminating paper in the home office coincided nicely with Homer’s push toward recycling and Earth Day recently. After the seminar, there were a number of prizes of the software I highlighted. Winners were:

Ron Hess: Yep!
Auberon Harrison: Circus Ponies Notebook
Cheryl Riley: PDFpen
Marilyn Hess: MaxEmail 1 year / $25 in services account
Sara Jackinsky: Cha-Ching

Thanks to all who came and see you next month!

March meeting

kachemacs — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 07:44:55 +0000

We had another successful meeting at the Homer library on March 4th! It was a beginners’ workshop with lots of input from some of the more seasoned members. I’m hoping everyone had something to take away from the meeting, no matter how much experience behind them. A couple of people had something to take away most definitely. Cheryl and Ginger were the lucky winners of our door prizes this time around. Thanks to O’Reilly and Tech Connect!

We also had a book review from Cheryl, who is reading “The Missing Manual: Mac OS X, Tiger Edition.” A written version of this review will be coming soon on our reviews page.

A couple of points were made by your facilitator involving getting involved. We have many titles of e-books from Take Control Books. See a title you like in their catalog? I’ll do my best to get you a FREE copy to review for the group and keep for yourself. This is a great way to get involved and get a little something for yourself. Also, there are several positions open for those who have just a little time to help keep the Kachemacs going. I have a number of hats I’d like to pass around for others to try. Check out the group business section for more information.

I have a document made up for those who missed the beginners’ workshop, or for those who would like to take a second look. It’s a condensed version of the points made in the demo.

beginner.doc

Thanks to all who attended, and see you next month!

Meeting Minutes February 2008

kachemacs — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 21:59:30 +0000

We had another successful meeting last night. We had a few less members than usual, probably because you all were at the caucus. We started out with some dinner, then proceeded to go over Studio Artist 3.5, a piece of software donated as a review copy by Synthetik Software. A written review will appear shortly in our reviews section that will cover what we went through at the meeting. This versatile software, classified as a “graphics synthesizer” is of interest to any visual artist (a few of those in Homer, right?) to provide varying levels of assistance in producing commercial grade art. I personally plan to use it to print on textiles to integrate into my artwork. We also discussed some business.

The most important point I’d like to make is to take advantage of one of the biggest perks of membership in a Macintosh Users Group. I have been working hard contacting vendors for products to be used in reviews. These products come to us free of charge, but we are expected to do a thoughtful review of the product to help the vendor make positive changes in the software. More information can be found in the Product Reviews section of the website.

Also, it’s time to delegate some of the efforts in making this group happen. We will be losing our Apple Ambassador soon and need a replacement. I would also like to pass on administration of the blog (sort of a Secretary position) to someone, and have a Review Coordinator. Job descriptions are in the Group Business section of the blog. Thanks to all who attended our meeting and hope to see many more on March 4th.

Meeting minutes

kachemacs — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 00:26:00 +0000

I was thrilled to death with the turnout for our meeting. We had so many new users. Everyone had to learn about their Christmas computers, no doubt. I’m sure some other people felt a little cramped. I mentioned that I would look for a new venue. Some options may have a fee for use, and if we do need to go that route, regrettably we’ll have to pass the hat to defray the cost.

Steve went over Google Earth/topo maps and iPhoto with members. He’s the one I want to go across the bay or camping with, since he has all the mapping technology at his disposal. The iPhoto was a great help to me, since I’m pretty new to the power of iLife. Stephen then discussed a few items, privacy being the main topic. I feel I can protect my identity on the web better with his expertise. Accessibility is important to him, and the keyboard mouse tips were great. I look forward to more on dot mac as well, being a new user of the service ($99 per year, and well worth it so it seems).

Stay tuned for more developments, and feel free to respond to the posts. I really need your feedback.