Report about MD Apple meeting, Tuesday, July 10, 2007
By Arno Drucker

This meeting was fairly well-attended, perhaps because of the announced topic - the recently released iPhone. Larry’s usual announcements were delivered around 7:00 PM, our usual starting time.

President Stephen Demczuk introduced himself and explained his interest in making beer (http://www.ravenbeer.com) and his business - recycling computers. Stephen also told us about a web site that he found extremely helpful: http://www.ifixit.com/. This website specializes in Mac computers, accessories  and iPods. There is a store where you can purchase any needed item but there is also a step-by-step, illustrated guide to fixing or replacing almost anything on any Macintosh computer. For example, if I wanted to install RAM on my Powerbook G4, the illustrated guide is clear and easy to follow how to do this. Stephen recommends this site, as do I.

Harris’ TIPS

Harris showed us where to find the “mother lode” of Mac tips - at http://www.apple.com/pro/tips/  There are approximately 100 tips on the first page - all with links, such as “Searching Just your Bookmarks” or “See-Through Notes”, etc. There are certainly loads of tips that Apple has supplied - you just need the time to explore them. Thanks, Harris for pointing out this immensely useful website.

The main topic of the meeting was the iPhone. Pete Saybolt and Arno Drucker were the main presenters. Pete began with showing the iTunes video of David Pogue (http://youtube.com/watch?v=vniMR6Ez9cE) a really great way to start. Since the iPhone had been available for only a few days (Pete’s and mine were purchased on the preceding Friday) there was little time to explore the device, let alone prepare for showing it to our gathering. There is no interface that allows the iPhone to be projected on the screen so we had to improvise - using a handheld iSight camera. Unfortunately it was not easy to hold both the iPhone and iSight camera steady and the images projected on the screen were blurry and reversed - an unsatisfactory way to show the iPhone. Perhaps in the future we will figure out a better way. At any rate Pete and I showed as many features as we could and answered as many questions as we were capable of answering with such a short period of experience.

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