Past Meetings

11 - 20 - 2003

The fifth meeting of the MacOS_Users_Group in Hammondsport, New York, was attended by five people (Tom B, Jack H, Jim P, Karl K and Dave W).

We welcomed two new people to the group: Dave W and Jim P. Tom gave a brief presentation of various ways to organize file views in open windows on a Mac. Besides the default alphabetical list by file name, you can also arrange order by file size, date modified and label. Categories can be added or deleted by selecting View > View Options. Sorting by color labels makes it easy to group a bunch of scattered files in a folder so they can be easily dragged to other folders or batch converted.

Next a short demo was given of how to create a webpage using a word processor like SimpleText and HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language). Some of the basic html tags were discussed. There are several practical applications for html pages, even if you don't plan to post a website. For example. it makes a great way to create a complex tutorial or presentation for slideshows that can be kept on your computer or shared via CDs. A couple online help sites to learn HTML and web design are Davesite and WebMonkey.

Finally a step-by-step burning demo was given by Tom (using a CD of course). An inexpensive 24x LaCie USB/Firewire CDRW burner was plugged into a USB card in an old Powermac 8500. Since a burner can only go as fast as the slowest link in the data tranfer, only a 4x speed could be attained with the slower PM8500 with a 120mhz processor. Tom mentioned that the first time he burned a CD he was expecting laser bolts of lightning and smoke to fill the room with Dr. Frankenstein-type zapping sounds emanating from the computer. But in reality only a thin film of plastic is heated in tiny spots to reflect light differently. Discussion ensued of what the best brand of burnable CD-Rs (read only) might be and the consensus was the cheapest. A spindle barrel of 100 can be bought for about $25 (or 25 cents per disc). Each will hold close to 700MB of data, music or photos. Tom burned an html copy of the King James Bible in about 20 seconds which could be viewed on any computer (Mac or PC) in a web browser. So for less than a quarter and 20 seconds of your time, it really works out to be quite a deal.

We will continue to meet on the Third Thursday of each month at St. James' Church. Next meeting: December 18.

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