Meeting canceled for February

Curl up with a good book or your computer.
Saturday's meeting has been canceled.

Dave Marra from Apple presents at macs@pacs

About Dave Marra: As a Senior Systems Engineer for Apple, Dave Marra has conducted more than 500 technology presentations, keynote addresses and workshops for schools, Mac and PC user groups, businesses and other professional organizations across the United States and Canada. His specialty areas include digital multimedia, internet technologies and Mac/PC integration. For more information about Dave, please visit his web site at www.marrathon.com.

Traveler IQ CHallenge

From listening to a lot of members talk, I realize that many of you enjoy traveling around the country and the world. This site will test your memory of geography. When you finish with the world try the other categories below:

» World » North America » Europe » World Capitals
» Canada » Asia » UNESCO Sites » Africa
» Latin America » Oceania/Australasia » Flags of the World
» Photos of the World » USA Challenge » Amazing Race

URL:

http://www.travelpod.com/traveler-iq/game1?utm_source=TIQSyndication&utm_medium=TIQ&utm_content=EmbeddedEndGameButton

It is fun. It can be addictive.
And also try it our with your children or grandchildren.
The site will tell you how close you have gotten to the actual place or country by placing a flag in the exact geographical location. Hopefully yours will be right beside it. Believe me when I say you will realize how much you don't know or have forgotten about the places you thought you knew so well........

PIMPAMPUN:: Phrasr

Want to have some fun??? Try this site. You'll love it.

First, you type anything that you want into the box.
Then they will find images to match it.
Next you will be able to change the images to suit your wishes.
Cool! Fun? or yes......

URL: http://www.pimpampum.net/phrasr/

Slashdot: News for Nerds and Things That Matter.....

Want to know what is happening out there in the world. Check out the stories on this website.
It is divided into sections below as well as other categories:
* Main
* Apple
* AskSlashdot
* Backslash
* Books
* Developers
* Games
* Hardware
* Interviews
* IT
* Linux
* Mobile
* Politics
* Science
* YRO
Slashdot stories can be listened to in audio form via an RSS feed, as read by our own robotic overlord.
Url: http://yro.slashdot.org/

Lifehacker Top 10: Obscure Google Search Tips

"When it comes to the Google search box, you already know the tricks: finding exact phrases matches using quotes like "so say we all" or searching a single site using site:lifehacker.com gmail. But there are many more oblique, clever, and lesser-known search recipes and operators that work from that unassuming little input box. Dozens of Google search guides detail the tips you already know, but today we're skipping the obvious and highlighting our favorite obscure Google web search tricks."

URL: http://lifehacker.com/339474/top-10-obscure-google-search-tricks

10. Get the local time anywhere
9. Track flight status
8. Convert currency, metrics, bytes, and more
7. Compare items with "better than" and find similar items with "reminds me of"
6. Use Google as a free proxy
5. Remove affiliate links from product searches
4. Find related terms and documents
3. Find music and comic books
2. ID people, objects, and foreign language words and phrases with Google Image Search
1. Make Google recognize faces

Leopard 10.5.2 Questions

(last updated by me at 18.48 on 22. Feb. 2008 *)

With the arrival of Leopard there are many changes in how the new interface performs. Some will be pleasing and others will be a challenge. You need to decide for yourself what works for you and enjoy the journey. Below is one member's experiences with the new system.
Linda McNeil

My personal major 'Leopard' grips (are mainly 'Finder' and the 'Dock' related):

Since 10.5.0 - Finders' 'Find' can no longer have its columns customized. Can you say "Finders' 'Find' is to Leopard, as 'Sherlock' is to Tiger?

( Some graphics may appear smaller than they actually are.
Click on the graphic to see it in full scale )

Figure 01. Finder's 'Find' in Tiger.

Figure 02. Finder's 'Find' in Leopard.

Since 10.5.0 - adding files to the '/Library/Contextual Menu Items/' or '~/Library/Contextual Menu Items/' folder, results in the contextual menu accessible via a 'More...' menu; thus, requiring un-needed additional sub-menu navigation. And now; to access 'Automator' workflows - one needs to navigate through two (2) contextual menu sub-menus!

Figure 03. Accessing the 'Snag path HFS' contextual menu item
('/Library/Contextual Menu Items') in Tiger.

Figure 04. Accessing the 'SayYes' 'Automator' workflow contextual menu item, in Tiger.

Figure 05. Accessing the 'Snag path HFS' contextual menu item
('/Library/Contextual Menu Items') in Leopard.

Figure 06. Accessing the 'SayYes' 'Automator' workflow contextual menu item, in Leopard.

With MacOS X 10.5.2 - adding a volume or folder, now requires individual configuring in order to navigate via the 'Dock'. Yes, you read that correctly - every time a volume or folder is added to the 'Dock', to navigate via it - you must configure it accordingly.

In 'Tiger' - clicking (pressing a releasing the mouse button) on a 'Dock' based volume or folder - will open the window of that volume or folder.
In 'Leopard' (MacOS X 10.5.2) the same action occurs - only if the volume or folder is empty; otherwise, a navigation menu appears.

In 'Tiger' - to present the navigation menu, one would press and keep pressed the mouse button (as has been the rule since MacOS X 10.0!). The noted pause, prior to the presentation of the navigation menu, could be eliminated by pressing or clicking the volume or folder icon (on the 'Dock') with the mouse right button.
In 'Leopard' (MacOS X 10.5.2) the same procedure merely presents the above mentioned configuration menu.

Like 'Tiger', 'Leopard' sometimes forgets how the user has configured 'Finder' windows to display. If you remove the 'Sidebar' and 'Toolbar' and close the window - do not be too surprised, if in the future - the 'Sidebar' and 'Toolbar' reappear when the window is opened.

Apple has yet to offer the ability to independently show / remove the 'Sidebar' and 'Toolbar'.

Oh yes, MacOS X 10.5.2 did bring one 'Dock' improvement, sub-menus of folder contents are no longer limited to 200+ items. I do not know, or have yet to test for, the new limit - if such now exists.

With MacOS X 10.5.2 - created 'alias'es now take up to 600 KB of hard drive space! Typically an 'alias' file contains less than 4 KB of actual data! With Tiger I have seen created 'alias'es to be mostly 4 KB, with some up to 64 KB; but none the size as those created with MacOS X 10.5.2.

And if that (excessive space for an 'alias' file) is not enough, when an 'alias' of a folder is selected, when navigating via a 'Dock' based volume or folder - the 'alias' is not rendered; thus, you cannot access the contents of the folder (of which the 'alias' points to)!

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This post is subject by change by myself or any administator of the 'Macs@PACS on the Web' blog.

* - I created a free 'Windows Live' account (using 'FireFox' v. 2.0.0.10) which provides up to 5 GB of free storage. Added to it were the graphics of Figure 01. through Figure 06. of this article, The Figures were removed (which are stored in ones Google's accounts' 'Picasa Web Album' - which provides up to 1 GB of graphic storage space) from the above article, and then - references to those stored at 'Windows Live' were added (to this article). Thus, you (should) see no difference; but, I reclaim 'Picasa Web Album' space.

I intend to perform the above process to the Figures of 'Parallels Desktop 3.0 for Mac', and other previous posts. Each time reclaiming more and more 'Picasa Web Album' storage space.

Figures 07. through 11. were removed. It appears that the one (and only) of eight external FireWire hard disk drives I have, and was the available, and had a clone of MacOS X 10.5 (from the MacBook) via 'SuperDuper!' v. 2.5, was not correctly managed by MacOS X 10.5.2 when connected to the MacBook.
Investigating and / or explaining the possible reasons of the noted anomaly are beyond the any intentions.

Finally, I removed references to 'this weekend' (due to the PACS meetings being canceled, as Upper Moreland Middle School closing the facilities over the weekend); and, the line 'OS: operating system', since the sentence it referred to - was externally edited out.