TMUG June 11 2012 - trilogymug.files.wordpress.com€¦ · 6/11/2012 · iPhone PrePaid Plans vs...

TMUG MEETING

11 June 2012

TrilogyMacintosh User Group

Meeting Agenda

•Any New Members ?•Anyone Just Purchase A New Apple Toy (Product) ?•Any Comments or Questions ?

Opening Comments

Next Meeting: 10 SeptemberNo Meetings During July and August (Summer Break)

Meeting Agenda

•What’s Happening in the Amazing World of Apple?•What Will Apple Announce Today?•iPhone PrePaid Plans•OS X Mountain Lion Preview

•What’s Happening in the Amazing World of Technology?•Mac Apps•Mac Hints•iPhone & iPad Apps •iPhone & iPad Hints•A Fun App

Meeting Topics for June

What’s Happening in The Amazing World of Apple ?

•Nielson is out with some new statistics on the iPhone, pointing out that — as of March 2012 — about 1 in 3 smartphone owners globally are using iPhones

•Nielson also said that Apple is also a top destination on the web, with 72 million unique US visitors to their site during April 2012 and “has been among the top 10 web brands overall”

•Apple is now giving away Snow Leopard to potential iCloud customers

•If your Mac is still running Leopard, Apple has recommended that potential customers get in touch with Apple to receive a free DVD of Snow Leopard so that users can upgrade to Lion, and move to iCloud


Apple's annual developers conference starts today, 11 June... what might be announced:

•OS X 10.8 - Mountain Lion for the Mac : Available in July

•iOS 6 for the iPhone and iPad expected to have following upgrades:

•Siri for the iPad (may not be added right away; possibly in the fall)

•An incredible new Maps application designed by Apple with a 3D mode

•A revamped iTunes Store, App Store, and iBookstore

•Features (?) brought over from OS X Mountain Lion

•Go to http://www.apple.com/ios/ios6/ for the latest on iOS 6

What Will Apple Announce Today?


•An easier way to let Mac users log in with their Facebook account, presumably without having to first open the Facebook's app

•An updated version of iCloud

•New Mac models, including a new 15” MacBook Pro with a thinner design, high-resolution Retina Display, and faster I/O...in fact, this might be the biggest simultaneous launch of new Macs in Apple’s history

•Apple may also introduce some new accessories

•See the latest announcements at http://www.apple.com/

What Will Apple Announce Today?(continued)



•As for Apple TV, the biggest change that Apple may bring to television is the unbundling of channels

•Apple may be working with studios to allow consumers to only pay for channels that they want instead of paying a monthly fee for only three channels that they watch regularly



•The following slides about Apple announcements were added to the original presentation at the last minute just prior to the TMUG meeting... these slides are clips from Apple’s Website as it was updated this morning after the announcements were made at the developer’s conference.

•Go to Apple.com for more details

iPhone PrePaid Plans vs Contract Plans

•Beginning 22 June you can buy a pre-paid iPhone for a pretty steep cost: $500 for a 16GB iPhone 4S or $400 for a 2-year-old iPhone 4

•Customers will then pay $55 a month to use it with Leap’s Cricket (as opposed to $70-$80 per month on the other carriers) with unlimited talk and text. For those who always want to use data, Cricket offers an “unlimited data” plan, but will throttle speeds after users hit 2.3GB in one billing period.

•Cricket service areas are limited across the U.S.

•The same phones from Verizon, Sprint or AT&T, cost $200 and $100 (respectively)

•Microsoft is currently planning to release their full Office suite for Apple’s iPad

•The company is targeting November of this year for the launch of Office

www.mycricket.com/iphone


•Beginning June 29, Sprint's Virgin Mobile USA unit will sell a 16-gigabyte version of the latest iPhone for $649, the same price as in Apple's stores, but will offer unlimited data plans—without the consumer needing to agree to a two-year contract—at nearly one-third the price of plans from rival postpaid carriers

•Virgin Mobile has prepaid plans that begin at $35 a month, including unlimited data and messaging with 300 minutes for phone calls

•Data speeds will be throttled after the user consumes 2.5 gigabytes a month

•An unlimited voice plan is available for $50 a month. The company offers a $5 a month discount to users that register for automatic monthly payments.

•Customers can also pay an additional $15 a month to use their iPhone as a mobile hotspot.

•Virgin Mobile's 16-gigabyte iPhone 4S will be about $450 more than the major carriers when signing a contract, and $150 more than the same models from Leap. Virgin will offer the older 8-gigabyte iPhone 4 at $549

http://newsroom.sprint.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=2305


•While the prepaid carriers may charge more for the phone, they charge less for their monthly data plans.

•For example, Virgin Mobile has prepaid plans that begin at $35 a month, including unlimited data and messaging with 300 minutes for phone calls. An unlimited voice plan is available for $50 a month. The company also offers a $5-a-month discount to users who register for automatic monthly payments. Leap, meanwhile, charges $55 for unlimited talk, text and data.

•In comparison, Sprint’s postpaid plan–which locks in the customer for two years but includes the subsidy for the phone–costs users $79.99 a month and includes unlimited data and messaging with 450 minutes of talk time. Similar plans from other wireless carriers can cost closer to $100 or more.

What Is The Better Deal?


•Over two years, using a prepaid iPhone is likely to be much cheaper than signing a long-term contract, even with the higher upfront costs.

•Buying a 16-gigabyte iPhone 4S from AT&T with a two-year contract will cost you about $2,360 over the life of the agreement. That is $199 for the phone, plus the monthly charges of $39.99 for 450 minutes of talk, $30 a month for 3 gigabytes of data, and $20 for unlimited messaging.

•On Cricket, you pay $1,820 over two years. That is $499 for the phone and $55 for the monthly service.

•On Virgin, you could pay $1,370 over the same period, using the $649 price of the phone and $30 in monthly charges. That is almost $1,000 cheaper than the AT&T contract.

What Is The Better Deal?(continued)



•The plans outlined above are not exact comparisons.

•For example, contract carriers tend to offer more voice minutes with their monthly plans

•So if you actually use your smartphone for calls, then they might be more attractive than the prepaid carriers

•The prepaid providers may throttle their data. For example, Leap’s Cricket Wireless slows you down after using 2.3 gigabytes a month. This is the daily equivalent of 50 emails, 25 Web page visits, uploading two photos and watching 10 minutes of streaming video, according to Verizon Wireless.

•Sprint says its unlimited data plans have no throttling as long as you stay on the Sprint network, although some have questioned whether the carrier slows down its heaviest users. Traditional postpaid plans, meanwhile, can get you more high-speed data if you pay for it. For example, Verizon offers 10 gigabytes for $100 a month.



•Finally, not all iPhone models are available on a prepaid basis.

•Right now, you only can get an 8-gigabyte iPhone 4 or a 16-gigabyte iPhone 4S.

•If you want a new 64-gigabyte iPhone 4S so you can carry all your music, pictures, video and whatever else, then you are going to have to sign a contract.

OS X 10.8 MOUNTAIN LIONWhat To Expect

Features: •Expect more than 100 new features•Many features will be similar to those in iOS on the iPhone and iPad, such as

•Reminders•Notes•Notification Center (will have its own icon in the menu bar)

•Banners will appear for a few seconds and then disappear•Alerts will require a manual acknowledgment

•Twitter Integration•Game Center•AirPlay Mirroring

•Gatekeeper (new)•A security technology that allows you to download and install apps from developers registered with Apple - will ensure that developers perform as advertised

•Share (new)•Allows you to send just about anything... Web pages, pictures,video, file, text excerpts... using a variety of services

Release Dateto be announced

TODAY

OS X 10.8 MOUNTAIN LIONWhat To Expect

(continued)Features: •iCloud (updated with new features)

•iCloud will give you access to files, such as in Pages, from the Cloud•Dashboard will receive a new widget browser along with a search bar•Messages will replace iChat... it will permit you to send messages from the Mac to an iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad•Preview (updates)•Calendar (used to be called iCal)

•Brings back the dedicated Calendars sidebar•Will have a search capability•It will try to suggest categories while you type•Event and alert reminders are revamped

•Safari will include several modifications•Contacts (used to be called Address Book)

•Will include the three column layout•Will include a Share capability

•Account Sync will let users sync their accounts across computers•New Screensavers

What’s Happening in The Amazing World of Technology ?

Kickstarter

•At this very second, thousands of people are checking out projects on Kickstarter

•They're rallying around their friends' ideas, backing projects from people they've long admired, and discovering things that make them laugh and smile.

•Every project is independently crafted, put to all-or-nothing funding, and supported by friends, fans, and the public in return for rewards.

What’s Happening in The Amazing World of Technology?

Kickstarter(continued)

•The filmmakers, musicians, artists, and designers you see on Kickstarter have complete control and responsibility over their own projects.

•They spend weeks building their own project pages, shooting their own videos, and brainstorming what to offer as rewards.

•Rewards are things like a copy of what's being made, a limited edition, or a custom experience related to the project.

•This isn't Best Buy — rewards aren't shrink-wrapped and ready to ship. Once the project is funded, the journey to bring them to life begins.



•Every project creator sets their project's funding goal and deadline

•If the project succeeds in reaching its funding goal all backers' credit cards are charged when time expires

•If the project falls short no one is charged.

•Since its launch in April 2009, more than 20,000 creative projects have been successfully funded by awesome people from around the world.

But Kickstarter is about much more than money... ■ Since launching in April 2009:

■ $200 million pledged to projects

■ 2 million people have backed a project

■ 20,000 projects successfully funded

Learn more athttp://www.kickstarter.com/



Example of a Recent Project: tiltpod for the iPhone

Clear Disk

Mac Apps

Clear Disk is a new utility designed to clear the hard disk of useless files which make Macs run low on disk space

•ClearDisk analyses the state of particular system folders which tend to clog up, and enables the user to clean up the disk space quickly by removing obsolete files•The advantages of ClearDisk over other similar tools are its quickness and efficiency,because it closely inspects the file categories that are commonly used for storage of unnecessary stuff on Macs•With a few clicks, ClearDisk enables the user to reclaim several hundred megabytes of disk space. It removes unused language resources, unnecessary downloads, old caches and clears the Trash

http://www.ugnn.com/2012/05/cleardisk-1-0/

Available at the Mac App Store

DeskToday

Mac Apps

•DeskToday is a Mac OS X utility that lets you quickly unclutter your desktop.

•It removes all the files and folders that are on the desktop, and puts them in a special folder with today's date•Desktoday is easily accessible at any time via an icon placed in the system menu bar in the top right corner of the screen.

•Here's how it works. You start it up, and, the first time, select where you want the Desktoday folders to be stored. By default they go into your Documents folder, but you can change that.

•Now, when you want to get rid of all the desktop clutter, just let Desktoday do its thing by selecting Clear Desktop from its menu. All the files and folders from the desktop will get moved to a special folder with the day's date as its name. Keep in mind, though, that Desktoday organizes items by the date you cleaned your desktop, and not the date when a certain file or folder on your desktop was created or modified.

FREEMac App Store

CheatSheet

Mac AppsFree in the Mac App Store

When you hold the CMD key down for 2 seconds, a list ofavailable shortcut for the application you are working in will pop up for your viewing andexecution

Wireless Solar Keyboard

•The K760 is powered entirely by ambient light. According to Logitech, the keyboard can charge from standard indoor lighting, and a full charge provides enough power for three months of use at eight hours per day.

http://www.logitech.com/en-us/keyboards/keyboards/Wireless-Solar-Keyboard-K760-for-Mac

Mac/iPhone/iPad Apps

Logitech has introduced the Wireless Solar Keyboard K760 for Mac, iPad or iPhone

$79.99

Wireless Solar Keyboard(continued)

•For people with multiple Macs and iOS devices, the best feature of the K760 is likely the fact that it can pair with three devices simultaneously.

•Even better, you can use the F1, F2, and F3 keys to quickly choose which of those three devices is actively connected to the keyboard. •The function-key row also includes Apple-style special functions: Mission Control, iOS Home, brightness down and up, play/pause, mute, volume down and up, and a key that serves as eject when controlling a Mac and keyboard-toggle when controlling an iOS device.

Mac/iPhone/iPad Apps

Logitech has introduced the Wireless Solar Keyboard K760 for Mac, iPad or iPhone (continued)

Mac HintsStop the “Rubber-Band” Effect

One thing that annoys many Lion users is "rubber-band scrolling": When you scroll to the end of a page in many apps, the page seems to continue scrolling a bit, then bounces back.

Here is a hint as to how to remove this scrolling”

•Go to Terminal and enter: defaults write -g NSScrollViewRubberbanding -int 0

•Then press Return

•It should stop the behavior in the Finder, Mail, Preview, and TextEdit, among other applications; it does not, however, work universally, Safari being one notable exception

•If you want to revert to the standard bouncy behavior, just run this command in Terminal: defaults delete -g NSScrollViewRubberbanding

•In both cases, you'll need to quit and relaunch any applications that displayed the rubber-band effect

Mac HintsMac Utility Folder

•You may have sometimes wondered what the Utilities folder inside of the Applications folder can do for you without being a nerd

•In fact, the utilities inside are so useful that the folder even has its own shortcut key combination. You can easily get to the Utilities folder in any Finder window by pressing Command+Shift+U

•Commonly used utilities include

•Disk Utility

•Console

•System Information

•Terminal


(continued)

Click any of the tabs at the bottom to instantly view the usage statistics, and a graph for the CPU, System Memory, Disk Activity, Disk Usage, and Network.

Click any of the running processes and then the Inspect button at the top of the window to view more information about that process, such as the page ins, CPU usage time, and detailed overview of the memory usage for that specific process.

Activity Monitor is built right into every Mac and provides you with information about the processor, memory, disk or network usage, and more, in one place.

Activity Monitor is a utility that is useful for checking many of your computer apps:


(continued)

Activity MonitorIf you’ve ever had the misfortune of experiencing an application that stops dead in its tracks and refuses to continue running, you know how painful it can be. But with Activity Monitor, you can control all of this by clicking the unresponsive application in the list of processes and then selecting the Quit button at the top of the window. Activity Monitor will then force quit the application so you can get back to working.

Mac HintsReopen a Recent Document

•In Lion, a quick right-click on an app's Dock icon will pop up a lists of that app's recently opened docs

•Choose a document from the list and it will re-open

Mac HintsLocating and Dispensing With Old Applications

Most all of us have old apps that we may not have used for a long time... maybe some that don’t even work with Lion... it is time to toss them!

In Finder, sort your applications by the date they were last opened so that you can toss out old apps... if you have not used an app in the last two years, the chances are that you not likely to use again

Open the Applications folder and select the Arrange window at the top and choose Date Last Opened... all of your apps will open from the latest to those who were opened well into the past... then start deleting those you will never use again

Mac HintsKeyboard Shortcuts, Multi-Touch Gestures,

Tips & Tricks and Recommended ApplicationsThere is a very useful Web site called Dan Rodney’s Mac Tips & Hints:

http://www.danrodney.com/mac/

It includes the following:•Keyboard Shortcuts•Mac Multi-Touch Gestures•Mac Tips & Tricks•Mac Apps I Recommend•iPhone/iPad Tips & Tricks

Mac Hints5 Safari Shortcuts

•CMD+Shift+D: Send A Website Directly To Your Reading List

Reading List is a pretty handy feature in Safari, but getting things into and out of it with a mouse is a pain in the backside. Hitting the CMD+Shift+D combination will move the page you’re currently viewing directly into your Reading List for later retrieval

•Shift+CMD+L: Toggle Reading List Window

This one’s a bit of an extension on the first tip. Hitting Shift+CMD+L will toggle your Reading List between an open and closed state

CMD+Option+A opens the Activity window and lists everything that’s loaded on a particular page, including video and Flash files.

•CMD+Option+A: Activity Window

CMD+Option+A opens the Activity window and lists everything that’s loaded on a particular page, including video and Flash files.

Mac Hints5 Safari Shortcuts

•CMD+M: Merge All Windows

You actually have to set it up in the System Preferences, but once you do, CMD+M will easily find its way into your daily browser workflow. The keyboard shortcut merges all of your open browser windows into one window. Here’s a brief tutorial on setting it up.1. Go to your system preferences2. Click on Keyboard3. Select the Keyboard Shortcuts Menu4. Click the + sign5. Select Safari.app from the Application Drop down list6. In the Menu Title section type in the exact name of the menu item. In this case it’s “Merge All Windows”7. Then hit the keyboard combination you want to use in the Keyboard Section. I used CMD+M.8. Click Add.

•CMD+Shift+R: Open An Article In Reader

•This can be one of your most used keyboard shortcut in Safari. Hitting CMD+Shift+R will open the current webpage or article up in Apple‘s Reader extension in Safari. Reader will then strip all the extra stuff out of the page and provide you with only basic text and links

NYPL Biblion

Free in AppStore in iTunes

iPad Apps

•Biblion, The Boundless Library immerses users in rare items from The New York Public Library’s vast collections, providing context while also allowing for serendipitous discoveries.

•The second Biblion, launching June 7, 2012, takes advantage of new social media features to spark digitally enhanced conversation and social reading

•Apple named Biblion one of its top apps in 2011 in the education category. Wired magazine praised it as one of 14 “outstanding apps for readers” in 2011, and The Atlantic magazine described it as “the magazine app of the future.”

Weber’s On The Grill

$4.99 in AppStore in iTunes

iPhone/iPad Apps

•Built from the ground up with Apple users in mind, Weber’s On the Grill for iPhone and iPad, each feature 280 classic Weber recipes plus 40 recipes for rubs, marinades, and sauces that are sure to get you fired up.

•You can tag your favorite recipes, create and share a master grocery list, and even email your favorite recipes to friends.

•What’s more, you’ll also love the collection of helpful how-to videos and the handy grill timer that ensures your timing is accurate and precise.

•They’re the apps no griller should be without.

iPhone/iPad AppsChomp

FREE in iTunesCHOMP IS THE SEARCH ENGINE THAT FINDS THE APPS YOU WANT

Chomp quickly locates in iTunes any

• Free apps for the day

• Trending apps

• All time great apps

• On sale apps

• New apps

•... and many more

iPhone/iPad AppsInstapaper

FREE in iTunes with Starbucks

Pick 0f the WeekApp

(Tony has copiesof Starbucks Free

App Card(Regular price $4.99)

•Find great web pages wherever you are, then read them at home or on the go, even without an internet connection, on your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch

•Simply install the Instapaper app and download your unread articles when you have Wi-Fi or 3G coverage, then you can read them anytime: on the train, on the bus, in an airplane, at the bank, or in your favorite chair Many more great features, including:

• Adjustable fonts and text sizes

• Dark Mode for night reading

• Built-in English dictionary

• Syncs your position in each article between multiple iPhones and iPads

• Folders for organizing articles

• Scroll by full pages (pagination)

• Scroll by tilting (tilt scrolling)

• Lock rotation

• Download up to 500 articles at a time

The critically acclaimed, award-winning app to read web pages on the go

iPhone/iPad HintsHints You May Not Have Known About

•Voice Memo

•You can use Voice Memo to create custom ringtones with relatively little effort

•Open the Voice Memos app and record your new ringtone (and remember, you can use your ringtones for other audio alerts besides incoming phone calls)

•Once you’ve finished recording your masterpiece, email it to yourself:

•Tap the list button at the bottom right corner to get to your list of memos

• If you want to trim the recording, tap the right arrow to get to the Info screen and then tap Trim Memo. Once you’re content with your recording, tap the Share button, and then Email

•Download the recording on your Mac. It will sport the .m4a extension.

•Rename the file to so that it instead ends with .m4r

•Double-click your new .m4r file, or drag it onto iTunes, and the software will now recognize it as a ringtone, which you can in turn sync back to your iPhone.


•Clock

•You can use it as a sleep timer for your music (or a video)

•If you want to fall asleep to the musical strains of your iPhone, launch the Clock app and tap on the Timer tab

•Underneath the dials for setting the hours and minutes for your timer to run, tap on the When Timer Ends button

•Scroll past all the sound effects, and you’ll find one option sitting by its lonesome: Stop Playing

•With Stop Playing selected, your iPhone (or iPod touch) will automatically stop playing whatever music or video is currently running when the timer runs out


•Stocks

•The Stocks app is another one that offers an alternate view when you rotate it into landscape mode

•You’ll see a wider chart of stock price over time, and you can adjust the charts range from one day up through two years

•Tap and hold on the chart in that view, and you can drag your finger to see exact stock prices on specific dates

• Swipe across the entire chart, and you’ll advance to the next stock on your list

•In the Stocks app tap and hold with two fingers: this will show a range representing the evolution of the stock between two specific dates...You can drag to select different dates. Tap and hold on the landscape Stocks interface to

pinpoint exact stock values on specific dates

A Fun App

http://www.stumbleupon.com/about

StumbleUpon: We help you easily discover new and interesting stuff on the Web. Tell us what you like, and we’ll introduce you to amazing web pages, videos, photos and more that you wouldn’t have found on your own.

As you Stumble through great web pages, tell us whether you Like or Dislike our recommendations so we can show you more of what’s best for you. We’ll show you web pages based on that feedback as well as what similar Stumblers and the people you follow have Liked or Disliked.

To sign-up or to watch a short video about it, go to

StumbleUpon is a discovery engine (a form of web search engine) that finds and recommends web content to its users. Its features allow users to discover and rate Web pages, photos, and videos that are personalized to their tastes and interests using peer-sourcing and social-networking principles.

FREE

NextTMUG MEETING

10 September 2012

TrilogyMacintosh User

Group

TMUG June 11 2012 - trilogymug.files.wordpress.com€¦ · 6/11/2012 · iPhone PrePaid Plans vs...

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