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Vintage Hardback Case Designed Exclusively for MacBook

Twelve South introduces BookBook, a unique new leather MacBook case that looks just like a vintage book. Designed exclusively for Apple MacBooks, BookBook features a hardback cover and a padded leather spine that keeps your Mac safe and secure as you shuttle it from place to place. Since it looks like a vintage book, BookBook also disguises your Mac, reducing the risk of theft. BookBook for 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Pro is available now at http://twelvesouth.com for $79.99.

Along with handsome looks, this distressed leather case provides excellent protection. Inside, your MacBook is safely stored within a velvety soft, padded interior. Outside, your MacBook is protected between two rigid book covers. The vintage-looking spine provides structural integrity and crush protection. When it comes to safeguarding your Mac, there is no comparison between BookBook and the typical, floppy neoprene zipper bag.

Summary of January Meeting

January is our annual Show and Tell of what you got for Christmas, or some recent gift or purchase. Some of the items shown…

• Dalite portable screen in a can – link
• External DVD burner with Lightscribe – link
• USB drive with memory card slot
• Apple Time Capsule – link
• iPod Touch – link
• Apps for iPod Touch or iPhone – iPod link or iPhone link

We also had general discussion on several other items, help on troubleshooting problems, hands-on time, juice, coffee, rolls, doughnuts and a good time.

Hope to see you at the next meeting!

Misa Digital Guitar Demo

If there’s one thing Guitar Hero and Rock Band taught us, it’s that we don’t need strings to be a rock star and rip gnarly riffs with the best of them. Sure, they’re just video games, but the Misa Digital Guitar is the real deal, and it’s just the kind of stringless guitar living room legends have been waiting for.

Consider the Misa a glorified MIDI controller whose sound “is limited only by what you connect it to.” There are 144 note buttons for the left hand to sift through, while the right hand rocks out by tapping a touch screen control pad. And of course it’s powered by Linux, which means the door has been left wide open for programmers to conjure up some funky modifications.

We can already sense the blood boiling from traditional guitarists who see this as yet another abomination of music, but if it helps any, Misa’s designers admit their creation shouldn’t be compared to acoustic or electric guitars saddled with strings. After all, “those are different instruments, for different art forms, for different music. This is electronic music.”

YouTube Video

Published on Maximum PC (http://www.maximumpc.com)

Erase Files good on a Mac

When you normally delete your files in Mac OS X, the operating system is only forgetting where those particular files are placed, while the data still physically remains on the drive. Beginning with Mac OS 10.3, Apple enhanced its security by introducing the Secure Empty Trash feature, which follows the U.S. DoD pattern of overwriting data seven times.

Permanent Eraser provides an even stronger level of security by implementing the Gutmann Method. This utility overwrites your data thirty-five times, scrambles the original file name, and truncates the file size to nothing before Permanent Eraser finally unlinks it from the system. Once your data has been erased, it can no longer be read through traditional means. For more info go to:
http://www.edenwaith.com/ and click on Permanent Eraser 2.4.0
Anyone heard of this s/w or use/used it?

Count Down to Track Santa

NORA and Google Team up to Track Santa

NORAD & GOOGLE Track Santa

All the preparations for this year are in place! Come back each day to receive updates from the North Pole and to discover new surprises in the Kids’ Countdown Village.

www.noradsanta.org

Summary of December Meeting

Dennis started off the meeting showing us some ideas and techniques with pictures in iPhoto ‘09. Included in the presentation was creating a slideshow using the capabilities of iPhoto, then taking your slideshow and/or pictures to iMovie ‘09 for some added “tricks” and iDVD for distributing a finished product. This concluded the topic Dennis started last month at our Special meeting.

Kent then followed with some tips on how to customize your preferences to control your default web browser, your default email application, how to set iTunes and how it reacts to when a CD is inserted into your computer, and how to set the preference in iPhoto on how it reacts to when a camera is connected to your computer.

A short demonstration was given on dual monitor setup, how to arrange the screens, and how to interact with multiple monitors.

We also had general discussion on several other items, help on troubleshooting problems, hands-on time, juice, coffee, rolls, doughnuts and a good time.

Hope to see you at the next meeting!

Web Site for Tutorials and How To

I found the picture in a picture tutorial at a neat website called wonderhowto.com.  I just typed iMovie in the search and it brought up the tutorials.  You could narrow the search by typing in iMovie ’09 etc.

Typed in other Apple programs and there were tutorials as well.

The site has all kinds how to stuff and is free, so would be valuable for other things as well.

http://www.wonderhowto.com/

Picture in a Picture Tutorial

Here is a tutorial for doing the picture in a picture effect.

http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to/video/how-to-create-picture-in-picture-effects-in-imovie-09-278617/

Valuable things should be kept in your Wallet!

Passwords should be protected, they are valuable, so save them in a wallet!

Are you still using generating passwords by putting two non related words together with a symbol?  Like flower:child? This is the old lame way we were taught back when AOL and Compuserve were the newest kids on the internet.  How about updating your security in 2010.  I would like to introduce you to Wallet.

www.acrylicapps.com

It is a simple encrypted storage system that you can safely use to store your passwords and other valuable information (like WiFi Keys).  You could use the Mac’s Keychain Access.app (located in the Utilities Folder) to save passwords but I have found the Wallet to be much easier.   The Wallet has a password generator that you can modifiy to make passwords to your liking.  Try this password on for size compared to the one’s you have been using. 53B92r64124  Now that’s a password!  You can have a custom password like that for every site you go to.  The wallet allows you to store a site’s username, password and url (+ anything else you might need to remember) and click on a simple link to launch Safari to load that page (you don’t have to fill in the blanks).  Quite an improvement in security.

Not all things in life are free, the Wallet will set you back $20 but the peace of mind is worth it.  I use it to store my wife’s passwords.  When she can’t remember her passwords, I just tell her that I have them stored in my Wallet.  Kind of nice to be useful!

Google Chrome Browser Beta – For the Mac!

Chrome

Google Chrome for Mac Beta

You might want to try the new Beta release of the Google Chrome Browser for the Mac.  We have been waiting patiently for it for a while.  It has been available for the Windows and Linux platforms but just now available for the Mac.   It does show some of the newest thinking about browsers, so as you use it, you will find some things a bit different.  I find myself liking Safari better but I’ll give Chrome a good try. Nice to have three top notch browsers to work with on the Mac – Safari, Firefox and Chrome.