Archives for September, 2006

Topic

A Demonstration of Recosoft’s PDF Conversion Applications

Presenters

Paul Chadha of Recosoft

When

Friday October 13th 2006, 7:30pm – 10pm

Where

Room M129, Building M, ACCC Mays Landing Campus

Have you ever received a pdf file that you wish you could extract data from? At our October meeting Paul Chadha will present a demo of Recosoft’s PDF conversion programs which allow you to open PDF documents in MS Word. to extract text or images. You can also convert the the PDF to PowerPoint or Word format. There are three versions available for purchase. Visit their website (http://www.recosoft.com/) for further information.

Products: PDF2Office Personal: Macintosh Version - PDF to Word

PDF2Office Standard forms paragraphs, applies styles, regroups independent graphics elements, extracts images; creates tables; processes headers/footers, endnotes/footnotes and columns/sections automatically - without any intervention.

PDF2Office Standard also provides options for converting or extracting data from a range of pages in a PDF document. You can extract text or images, or convert the entire document to the Microsoft® PowerPoint® or Word format.

PDF2Office Standard enables you to recover the data stored in PDF documents - making them available for use by anyone. Since PDF2Office Personal is a plug-in for Microsoft® PowerPoint® and Word, it is not necessary to acquire and install additional PDF editing software and tools resulting in huge cost savings in both time and expense.

Presentation topics may change so be sure to verify on the day of the meeting. Got questions you’d like to have answered? Feel free to post them as comments before the meeting so the presenters have a chance to prepare.

Apple has posted the latest update to Mac OS X “Tiger” bringing it to version 10.4.8. The update can be installed via the Software Update menu item in the apple menu or you can download a Combo Updater from apple web site:

• Mac OS X 10.4.8 Combo Updater for PowerPC Macs
• Mac OS X 10.4.8 Combo Updater for Intel Macs

The combo updaters include all previous 10.4 updates and have historically resulted in a “better upgrade experience” (i.e. less screw-ups) than the incremental updates alone. They are also quite large (on the order of 200-250 MB) so a high-speed Net connection is essential.

Detailed notes about the changes in 10.4.8 can be found in this article:

• About the Mac OS X 10.4.8 Update

Note that one issue mentioned is “Resolves performance issues that could occur when connecting to a Comcast network.”

There is also a new security update for Mac OS X 10.3.9 users:

• Security Update 2006-006 (10.3.9 Client)

Owners of iLife 06 should also find new software updates for its component applications. Most seem related to Aperture v1.5 compatibility but presumably there are other fixes and improvements as well.

2006-Sep-30 Update: Changes to Screen Zoom

Apple has changed the way you access screen magnification (Zoom) in this update. There is now a checkbox and associated options in the Keyboard & Mouse system preferences pane to allow zooming the screen via a mouse scroll wheel. The default is CONTROL + scroll wheel and actually works fairly well. The same feature is supported on laptops with a trackpad that supports two-fingered scrolling.

Unfortunately, in the process of adding this feature the old method of invoking screen zoom (via hot keys) seems to have been broken either intentionally or accidentally. Previously you could assign a hot key (COMMAND-OPTION-8 by default) to toggle zoom on and off and two other keys to zoom in or out by a single step. While these three hot keys are still available they operate differently.

The on/off key turns zoom on and off but no longer zooms in to your previous zoom factor. The Zoom In key will do this and additional presses increase the zoom as before, however the Zoom Out key now zooms all the way out when pressed, there doesn’t appear to be any way to reduce the zoom incrementally via a hot key, you must use the scroll wheel method (not terribly useful if you don’t have a scroll wheel equipped mouse.)

I’m not sure why this was changed since both methods could co-exist quite well, the the old hot key scheme was very handy. I’m hoping it was a mistake and will be fixed in the next update.

2006-Oct-01 Update on Comcast Fix

Wow, they weren’t kidding about a fix for Comcast connections. After installing 10.4.8 I’ve seen peak download speeds on the order of 12-16megabits/second, more than double what I was seeing previously which was roughly the maximum rate Comcast says we should expect (6 megabits/second.) My guess is that Apple’s fix makes Mac OS X compatible with the PowerBoost feature Comcast has been advertising on television for the last few months.

I just added two new photo albums with photos from the A.C. Apple Store opening and from the Wi-Fi picnic. Both are available via the Photo Albums link at the top of the sidebar.

It’s possible the photo albums might not been working correctly for a few weeks due to a change at Flickr but a quick update has solved that problem. If you notice that any web site features aren’t working correctly send a quick email to the webmaster.

Today’s Apple “It’s Showtime!” event (Quicktime webcast feed here) introduced significant changes to the iPod line, iTunes and the iTunes Music (and Video and now Movie) Store.

click here for more

Topic

Fall Wi-Fi Picnic

When

Friday September 8th 2006, 7:00pm – 10pm

Where

Carolyn’s home in Linwood (directions will be supplied)

As a bit of a break from the sweltering heat of the Summer (and because of various scheduling problems) we’re going to have our wireless Net picnic in September this year. No specific agenda just bring a covered dish or other suitable munchie, an Airport equipped laptop if you have one and spend the evening just chatting and relaxing.

To avoid a disproportionate allocation among the edible categories please post a comment saying what you’ll be bringing. As we get closer to the picnic we’ll add a list of “needs” for those looking for ideas. Anyone needing direction can request them via email to the web site admin (webmaster@acamug.org).

Presentation topics may change so be sure to verify on the day of the meeting. Got questions you’d like to have answered? Feel free to post them as comments before the meeting so the presenters have a chance to prepare.