Info Manager for November 4, 2002

[*]   Steve Case out?

[*]   Apple Holds On To Education Market Share

[*]   MacTiVo Blesser Available Again

[*]   Opera

[*]   Paul McCartney: Mac Guru?

[*]   dealcam.com extends dealnews franchise

[*]   Freenet: A bulwark for free speech online

[*]   Meeting topic idea

[*]   Safety Recalls

[*]   Looking for Volunteers

[*]   Speaking of AACUG...

[*]   Desert Island Disk

[*]   Quotes: Pope, Park, Einstein
.

Steve Case out?

The New York Post among several papers is predicting that Steve Case may soon be out as CEO of AOL. They say that the board is upset that AOL purchased TimeWarner because of improper accounting techniques made it appear that AOL was more profitable than it truly was. Therefore AOL was valued higher than it should have been. (Then again, I saw another article that thought maybe they would spin off AOL and get out of the .com business. The Post article is at:
http://www.nypost.com/business/49660.htm

Apple Holds On To Education Market Share

Although Apple is no longer the largest seller of computers to schools, Electronic Education Report on October 25th reported:
      "Fred Anderson, chief financial officer, said Apple was able to hold on to its share of the education market during the fourth quarter.
      With an estimated $210 million in sales to K-12 and college segments for the quarter, according to Simba Information, EER's parent, Apple maintained a 15.5% share of those segments." I donāt have a web link for this publication as it came to me via Factiva.com

MacTiVo Blesser Available Again

From TidBITS

**MacTiVo Blesser Available Again** -- Mac users who want a do-it- yourself approach to adding a hard disk to a TiVo can once again download the free MacTiVo Blesser program (the original site disappeared in the iTools to .Mac transition). TiVo upgrade vendor Weaknees.com is now hosting MacTiVo Blesser at the link below; the page also provides links to the necessary instructions. Note that MacTiVo Blesser works only for preparing a second hard drive for adding to any single-drive TiVo other than the new Series2 TiVo; it doesn't help you swap your existing drive out or make a backup of your existing drive. For more details on upgrading a TiVo, see "Upgrading the TiVo" in TidBITS-644_. [ACE]

* All Mac users should subscribe to TidBITs: http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=06918
http://www.weaknees.com/mactivo.html>

Opera

The Tourbus also had a terrific article on the Internet browser Opera. It now is a free install. (Does have banner advertisements.) More details at: http://www.opera.com and the article is in the archives at
http://www.tourbus.com

Paul McCartney: Mac Guru?

DVD Report for October 28th is reporting that Paul McCartney is releasing his concert DVD on November 26th and asked Apple to modify its DVD drivers so that its extra features would play on a Mac. Cool. (Another article that I obtained via Factiva)

dealcam.com extends dealnews franchise

Ron Carlson in an IGM article is reporting that the folks at dealnews.com who have published dealmac.com for sometime is now doing dealcam.com for the camera buff. I will certainly check them out when I finally have enough cash for a digital camera. Full story at:
http://www.insanely-great.com/news.php?id=1194

Freenet: A bulwark for free speech online

In an article with the above title, Ron Carlson on Insanely Great Mac tells about this pillar of the free Internet community (Freenet.org). They now are sponsoring peer to peer software. It allows anyone to publish and read information with anonymity. So check out the article, you may find that FreeNet is something you can support.
http://www.insanely-great.com/news.php?id=1195

Meeting topic idea

I was just on the web site of Atlantic City Macintosh User Group and noticed their November 8th meeting topic: "Tips, Tricks & Gadgets Night". Really sounds like a good idea. It could be done as a panel discussion to start, but be sure to get the audience involved. Almost everyone will have a tip or trick they want to share
http://www.acamug.org

Safety Recalls

Do you keep track of all the products that have been recalled? I thought not. The Neat Net Tricks* newsletter has recommended this web site for checking on products that have been recalled. It is at:
http://www.safetyalerts.com/Default.htm

Looking for Volunteers

AACUG is looking for a few good volunteers to help update a pile of archive files for the web site.
. . . If you've got a bit of time to donate, and you've got Filemaker Pro 4 or higher, then they want to hear from you. Just put "Volunteer" in the subject line at:
http://www.aacug.org/contact.html

Speaking of AACUG...

They've updated their news page in MUG, with new November content. Several new items were added just this morning.
check them out at: http://www.aacug.org/MUG/index.html

Desert Island Disk

The folks at TourBus are making the following suggestion:
      "Next time you find yourself without much to do on a drizzly Sunday afternoon ("the long, dark teatime of the soul") and the Steelers have put Kordell back in and you can't bear to watch, make yourself a desert island disk.

* STEP ONE: go back through your email archives and jottings and make a copy on your hard drive of the keys and passwords that activate the shareware programs you've paid for. (Do this by saving the emails as plain text)
      Save the emails with keys and passwords as plain text. You never know what the computer on your desert island is going to have on it, and you don't want to have it in some kind of proprietary mail format that you can't read. If your email program offers the option, the good old Unix mbox format is just fine. It's plain text, and it'll give you the whole message just the way it came down the pipe to you.

* STEP TWO: browse through the folders where you keep your programs, and go out on the net and download a new copy of the installers for those programs you got from the net. Make a folder for each program, and if the installation instructions look tricky, save a copy of them in the same folder.

* STEP THREE: read over your licenses and find out which ones only allow you to install the software on one machine. Make a note in the folders of the ones that only allow one installation.

* STEP FOUR: burn a couple of CD's of the stuff you've saved. Voila! A desert island disk you can use to install your favorite stuff on any computer, or restore to your computer if it crashes. Store one of them offsite, e.g., at work or in your safety deposit box. You never know.

* STEP FIVE: as you download more programs to try out, instead of throwing those installer programs and zip files away, make a place where you'll save them. Then, when the fancy strikes you, burn Volume 2 of your desert island disk.
      This isn't a substitute for a regular backup. In a regular backup you save all the files you've generated (e.g., web browser bookmarks, email archives, web pages, letters and documents). You don't need to make a copy of your programs in your regular backup. They hardly ever change, and it's just a waste of time. But you do need one copy of the files you'd have to download again if things went poof, and that's what your desert island disk is for. (End quote)
      Great advice. The Internet Tourbus has great material for whatever platform.
So you can check it out at: http://www.tourbus.com/

Quotes: Pope, Park, Einstein

"Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside."
      Alexander Pope, "Essay On Criticism"
 
"It's the scariest thing around. The only thing worse than a lie detector that doesn't work is one that does."
      Physicist Robert Park comments on a new type of brain scans that can reveal when a person recognizes a familiar face, no matter how hard he or she tries to conceal it.
 
"It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer."
      Albert Einstein~* Subscribe to Neat Net Tricks at: http://www.escribe.com/computing/neatnettricks/
http://www.escribe.com/computing/neatnettricks/

pau

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Also see: MUG NEWS bursts from the AACUG Mac User Guide (MUG)
 

Note: Features schedule

The InfoManager invites user groups to use his column in full or in pieces in their newsletter. Or add a link to their web site. He would appreciate word that you are doing so however and if you can, please send a pdf version of the newsletter for his perusal. Or provide him with a link. The address is InfoManager@user-groups.net. You can also use that address for feed back.
Note: Features schedule
1st Monday Vendor of the Month; (VOM)
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3rd Monday TBA (What would you like to see?)
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Of course I could make adjustments to this schedule as I see fit and will take suggestions. Have a great week! Note: In light of the new AACUG MUG tabloid publication, I may be changing the above schedule. Please send me your input.
Pau

The Info Manager is a veteran of the UGN (AOL User Groups Forum) and User Group Network. He's been a supporter and volunteer on many, many UGNet and User Group Academy projects. As a long time user group member, he's served as volunteer from Honolulu to Boston and many points in between. Currently working with the Apple Corp of Dallas, the Dallas Mac Pack, Cowtown MUG of Ft. Worth and TUMS (the Tulsa Users of Macintosh Society) doing newsletter articles and the monthly CD-ROM Update. Post a lead Info Manager should follow up on.

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