Hawaii’s Science, Technology and New Media Community, is having their annual conference this Saturday at the Art Auditorium at UH Manoa from 9 am  – 5:30 pm.  They invite any interested persons to…

Join us to learn about projects ranging from nanotech and game design to a new electric car sharing network being launched in Hawaii. This conference is a deep dive – by science and technology people, for science and technology people. The keynotes and panels will operate on these assumptions. http://www.techhui.com/page/techhui-conference-2010-1

Very informative and very cutting edge.  One of the presentations is on HTML 5 and presented by someone from Google.  Another is on renewable energy, yet another on inventors.     Register now if you are interested, space is limited.  $25 for members, and membership is free at their site.  While there check out the diverse and active TechHui Groups.  Last fall they were over 70, more by today for sure. All interested folks are invited to join TechHui and any group they’re interested in.

This-a-way graphics by Wolfman Gass

SpringFest 2010 on May lst brought over 120 people through the doors at Kapiolani Community College for a full day of workshops, door prizes and a swapmeet!  Congratulations to iPad grand-prize winner and new HMAUS member Darrel Baluscang!

iPad Winner Darryl Baluscang and President Wolfman Gass photo courtesy of Kate Paine

Mae Kishimoto, another HMAUS member, won the MacSpeech Dictate software with a Bluetooth headset courtesy of Andy Taylor and Nuance Software.  Other lucky winners walked away with $20 Best Buy gift-cards, camera bags and other prizes.

Alex and Zac Ozawa

Mahalo to  Ryan Ozawa for the photos; more fun pics at his Hawaii Flickr stream.

The iPad was definitely the big star of the day;  but there were a couple of little ones too! (see photo)

Presentations began with  Jerome Koehler, Apple Solutions consultant from Best Buy Aiea, who highlighted the iPad and the new MacBooks.

Four Professional Photographers of Hawaii members shared how they capture their unique images: Dwight Okumoto, of Studio 3 presented panoramas; Claude Ayakawa of Claude’s Photos, portraiture; Jennifer Chung, dance, and Terry Takaki of TMC & Associates, lenses for close up and landscape.  Mick Isde of Lighthaus Camera gave a preview of SLRs with HDR video. HI Communications demoed the super fast Clear 4G system and provided everyone with Wi-Fi all day.

Ohia Auditorium presentations

There was a short HMAUS annual meeting to confirm the election of six Board directors – Rick “Wolfman” Gass, Ronald Albu, Kimo Sutton, plus new Board members Burt Lum, Claudia Nygard and Christian Ganne.

And there was more!  Chris Gagiulo of KCC’s New Media Arts program explained the development of  websites, from concept through wireframing using Adobe Creative Suite.  Brian Kerber of AppleMagic.net offered Mac 101; Ross Rasmussen, iApps that come free with everyone’s Mac; Greg Kamei took folks deeper into iTunes;  Ron Albu & Lois Cain showed how to have fun with Skype and iChat. There was something for everyone.

Enjoying the day - Jerome Koehler, Apple Consultant, flanked by HMAUS members Mark McMahon and Ron Albu; Linda Hijirida with her iPhone; Burt Lum and Terrence Young in his cool Bytemarks Cafe t-shirt!

People agreed the sessions could have been longer, but that was OK because one of the purposes of Springfest is to get folks interested in learning more by attending other events held throughout the year. A schedule is always available at the HMAUS Signal website http://www.hmaus.org. Lecture presentations are free, hands-on workshops are very inexpensive.  HMAUS members get priority seating and discounts.

Want to support the programs and take advantage of the learning opportunities?  Join HMAUS for just $24 per year. It’s a steal!

And if you missed Springfest, keep your eyes and ears open, and be ready for Mactoberfest, the next big HMAUS event, coming in the Fall.

Top to bottom row: Swapmeeters Dwight Okumoto and Studio 3, Tony Ing of HI Communications, Eugene Villaluz, Lyle Awakuni and Candace Fernander,

]]> http://www.hmaus.org/2010/05/14/springfest-came-went-and-was-great/feed/ 0 http://www.hmaus.org/2010/05/07/handy-iphone-apps-for-staying-connected/ http://www.hmaus.org/2010/05/07/handy-iphone-apps-for-staying-connected/#comments Fri, 07 May 2010 20:00:02 +0000 markmcmahon http://www.hmaus.org/?p=4397 If you are like me, you’ve got to live in a mixed OS environment, at home is Mac and at work is Windows. And, you’ve got an iPhone or iPad which works great with Mac, but doesn’t play quite so nice in a corporate environment. Here are some great apps for your iPhone that will help you bridge the gap between those worlds.

DropBox: FREE — sync files — with this iPhone app, you have access to your files on the go. And since the storage is cloud-based, and dropbox works on both Mac/Win you can have your files synced effortlessly. See my previous Dropbox article about the software versions and how to download and install on both platforms with FREE 2GB + 250MB of storage.

Evernote: FREE — sync notes — while the iPhone app isn’t as robust as some other Note applications, it will sync with their incredibly handy Mac and Windows application. So, if you’ve made notes or clipped screenshots at home for your big presentation at work, you can edit it on the way with the app, and then have it synced and ready on your work PC. See my previous Evernote articles for more details.

LastPass: FREE (requires $12/year subscription) — sync passwords — there you are visiting a favorite website at home or on your iPhone, but you can’t remember what password you used. Not any more with LastPass. LastPass works as a browser add-on that will store and sync your login information. Plus, anywhere you travel, you can log into the LastPass.com site to find those passwords. Find out more about LastPass with my previous article on it.

Skype: FREE — cheap talk — sure iChat is great on the Mac, but it’s limited to the Mac. Skype works on both platforms and even on your iPhone. With Skype, if you subscribe to one of their unlimited talk plans (US = $3, Japan = $6), you can not only talk all you want at home, at work, and on your phone. (NOTE: Skype currently requires you to use WiFi to make calls on your iPhone. To get around this limitation, you can use the FREE Fring application, which allows you to make Skype Out calls over the 3G network.)

Pandora: FREE — cheap music — if you love music, this is one app you need to have. Set up “stations” of your favorite music and let Pandora stream that music to you via this iPhone app. Pandora.com works great in Firefox and Safari also, so you can listen to those stations at work or home too.

Toodledo: ($3) — sync to-do’s — with this iPhone app you can edit/add/delete your To-dos. Toodledo’s website offers links to sync your account with both Mac and Windows, so those changes you made will be reflected wherever you go.

Photo apps: — see your photos — there are several good apps to show and upload your photos to a photo site, including Shutterfly (FREE), Flickr (FREE), Eye-fi (FREE), and Picasafoto ($.99, for Picasa) . If you take a lot of photos and want to see them on the road, these apps will help you stay connected to those images.

Yelp: FREE — great tips — Yelp’s iPhone app can help you find local businesses quickly. The “bookmark” feature is really great for keeping your favorite places’ phone numbers handy. So, you can order your favorite Thai dish in advance for quick pickup. User reviews can also give you tips what to order or avoid.

MAC ONLY:

AirMouse: ($2) — control your Mac with your iPhone. This app will work with your local WiFi network to become a trackpad to control your Mac wirelessly. Much more robust than Apple’s free Remote app, and cheaper than a Magic Mouse.

Prowl: ($3) — get PUSH notification on your iPhone from any Growl messages on your Mac. If you have Growl installed to display notifications on your Mac, Prowl allows you to send those notifications to your iPhone. You can be notified of things like disk errors, completed downloads, or whatever you want.

Well, I hope that’s helped you with some cool apps for you iPhone. If you have children and don’t mind them holding your $300 device, then check out my other articles on iPhone Apps for Toddlers.

The proposed By-laws changes were also passed.   Mahalo to all the HMAUS members who took the time to vote and to Eugene for setting up the online balloting!

The Wi-Fi-only iPad version will be released on April 3. So, members who attend that already have their iPads delivered prior to the meeting will get the chance to learn more as experts from Apple give us tips. For the rest of us, it will be a chance to see what this little beauty can do, and see if we can wait until the 3G option is available in a couple of months.

The event will be free but with limited space for about 20 members only. Register NOW to get a space. (Once those spaces are filled, registration will end.)

MacLearn  10 a.m. – 12 p.m.  Mobilize Me! Marie Albu, a graphics arts student in San Francisco, presents a slew of ways to connect to your computers and mobile devices using MobileMe. It works on Mac OS and Windows! Bring your iPhone, iPod, laptop and your MobileMe login information or download and install a free trial before you come. She’ll help you get started then show you a bunch of cool things you can do with it!  Location:  First floor Interactive Orange Room.  No registration.  More details at http://www.hmaus.org/2010/01/12/mobilize-me/

MacLearn monthly events happen on the fourth Saturday at ING Direct Cafe from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.   HMAUS classes are on the Calendar so look for upcoming events.

Image Makers 12:30 p.m.- 2:30 p.m.  Making photographs that say “buy me!” on Ebay and Craigslist with photographer Terry Takaki.  Outstanding pictures will really help you get the best price for your items. They’ll sell faster because your buyers will see what they need to see.

Our guest expert, Terry Takaki, will conduct a hands-on workshop on how to make images of products using a table-top lightbox, lighting and backgrounds. You will learn how to use light to bring out the best features of your product. You will also receive instructions on how to make your very own lightbox from inexpensive materials.  Bring a small doll if you want to pickup tips on lighting and portraiture.  Location:  Second floor Ali’i Room.

Parking behind the cafe off Pau Street or drive mauka on Pau to Ala Wai Boulevard.  Turn left, then left again on Niu Street.

HMAUS sponsored three diverse and interesting Hawaii Geek Week offerings about new ways of doing things. The presentations took place at ING Direct Cafe on three evenings.  They focused on capitalizing on the reach and power of today’s Internet and computers . . . without programming expertise.  That means they’ll work for a lot of us!

October 20, 2009  ”TechHui” by Daniel Leuck was about a science, technology and media arts social network that has taken on a life of its own.
October 21, 2009 “Do you really need a webmaster?” by Mark Johnson answered the question, “no you don’t!”
October 22, 2009 “Mac OS vs Windows 7″ was a fun side-by-side look at the two big operating systems presented by Rolf Nordahl and Jeff Litvinoff.

October 21, 2009
Daniel Leuck,  CEO of Ikazyo, the creator and principal sponsor of TechHui demonstrated how such a diverse community can work as a source of information, job leads, marketing and social and intellectual interchange.  He showed the underlying Ning structure and the multiple options for interactivity and information management Ning and various plugins can offer.  At this point, group formation and content at TechHui are user driven, an essential characteristic of a dynamic social community.  Join the new HMAUS group at TechHui that Rico Moreno created for us.  Mahalo to Rico, Daniel and Mika for helping us create our group and spreading the word about Hawaii Geek Week and Mactoberfest!  http://www.techhui.com/group/hmaus

October 21, 2009
Mark Johnson, CEO of logicspin.com and menumill.com presented “Do you REALLY need a webmaster?” He demonstrated a variety of online services that allow you to build a website using templates that  you then customize your content, without knowledge of coding.  Mark reports his product, Menumill.com offers clean code, user friendliness, customization and affordability. Regardless of the provider you choose, he stressed the importance of putting effort into first thinking through your site’s purpose, the nature of its content, and the type of user experience you want to present.   Then it’s much easier to create a site that’s coherent, easily navigable and focused.

October 22, 2009
Rolf Nordahl of Macmouse Club and Jeff Litvinoff of Personal Touch Computers put Snow Leopard and Windows 7 on two side-by-side monitors for a features comparison. Both offer simple navigation, speed and  claim stability. The Live Task Bar in Windows 7 is nice.  You can list favorite files for each open application and view them as jump menu popups from the task bar. A touch screen feature is possible with the right hardware and application. Some of the advanced Premium features will only work on new computers but there are several options to choose from. Rolf says “the war is over” the systems are becoming closer in functionality and usability.  Is it time to load Windows 7 on your Intel Mac?  A resounding “maybe!”

We thank our presenters for sharing with us and broadening our perspectives about what’s possible.  Mahalo to the members and new friends who joined us and the staff of the Waikiki ING Direct Cafe for again hosting us so graciously!

Mactoberfest was, for the first time, combined with Leeward Community College’s new Geek Day on October 24th.  It was a great idea, but there was a major problem – it was too short! There were 17 presentations in 5 hours and each was worth participating in. The sessions should have been strung out sequentially so you could attend all of them. Seventeen hours later . . . you’d be done!

But choices had to be made and about 120 good folks did that! The HMAUS sponsored talks were standing room only!  Rolf Nordahl presented Mac 101 for newbies and switchers. Gregg Kamei presented iPhoto, and Mark McMahon handled iTunes, iPod and iPhone. Burt Lum and Ryan Ozawa closed the day in the HMAUS track with Social Media 101.

LCC’s Digital Media faculty and students presented Illustrator, Flash, Alice a 3D modeling program, Ning for making a free website, Picnik for online photo editing, home security and iApp development. They were hands-on but aimed at the beginner.  Meanhile students and staff did demonstrations on Voice Thread, making a Hawaiian tattoo, drawing an anime character and Dreamweaver for artists and displayed their work.

As always we had door prizes and the top prizes were an 8 GB iPod Nano with video, a $65 backpack and a watercolor print donated by HMAUSer Candace Fernander. Mac Mouse Club and O’Reilly Books donated books and other prizes.

A big mahalo goes to our great presenters and volunteers, to LCC’s Kathleen Cabral and Cindy Martin who coordinated and marketed the day, to Christian, his faculty and the Digital Media student who set up, cleaned up, assisted and did presentations!  Good job!

Read what HMAUSers had to say.  
What stood out for you?

Marcy and Bob Katz on Social Media 101 with Burt and Ryan. “What stuck for Bob was that he learned to be careful of what you say on a social media site.  I learned that I don’t really like any of them and don’t need them in my life right now, unless I want to know what is going on in the lives of my two daughters.  It was a well presented and organized presentation…Burt and Ryan zeroed in on addressing issues from the audience and showed and told us what the differences were between social media sites.”

Mark McMahon shared this great iTunes/iPod tip. iSquintis is a free online service that allows you to convert AVI type files you might have into smaller files perfect for your iPod Touch screen. It’s a free program that adds the converted file directly into iTunes for easy storage and syncing. http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/19769

Adrienne Palmer went to the iPhone app development session taught by Blanca Polo of LCC. “The tip that stuck in my mind the most was that programmers need to have a lot of patience.” With 65,000 apps as of this August and over a billion downloads, this advice makes sense. Kelvin Kakugawa shared one of his latest app with the group! Go Kelvin!

Adrienne also went to Creating Tattoos with Photoshop and Illustrator. “The tip that stuck in my mind the most was: that it’s best to draw in Illustrator and output into Photosåhop.” Illustrator is a vector drawing program which does a great job on creating objects that can be made as tiny or as big as you like without losing its sharpness. Photoshop then can add shading and effects to finish off the image. LCC has a huge Wacom digital pad that serves as both the drawing surface and computer desktop. Cool.

Cynthia Oshiro “…filmmaker Tom Boyle talked about film, technology, and Hawai’i.   A Punahou classmate of Barack Obama, Boyle shared his YouTube commentary on Obama’s family background. He also screened the trailer to his latest film, Truth or Dare, a horror film . . . with scenes set in Honolulu cemeteries and haunts. The film was shot with a Red One digital camera and edited with Final Cut Pro.”

Marie Kunimura went to Mac 101. “Rolf gave a history of the development of OS X interwoven with a discussion of the Preferences in OS X which helped a newbie or switcher like me understand how to customize a Mac and install peripherals.”

Marie was so convinced by Gregg’s iPhoto workshop that she went home and spent some money. “I learned that iPhoto is doable for me. I ordered iLife just for iPhoto. I liked the book making capability, and the easy photo enhancement. Easier than Photoshop Elements and suits my needs.”

Ron Albu went for the big gun apps. In “Animate Yourself! Daniel Boulos, a LCC Faculty, created a project where students used the iSight camera to take a photo. Then we edited the photo for size and copied and inserted it into a premade Flash animation. It was a fairly easy project which demonstrated how Mac programs work together to create a finished product. Marcy and I enjoyed helping each other figure out the finer points and also were able to save our projects to our MobileMe accounts. The student assistants were very friendly and helpful.” By the way, did you know Daniel was an animator for Walt Disney, Dreamworks and Warner Brothers? Cool, huh?

Ron Albu also really enjoyed Drawing with Adobe Illustrator by Alan Leitner of LCC. “He put a lot of work into creating a project we could whip through with NO experience using Illustrator. He had a sample project and had us basically connect the dots. As one who feels he has no artistic talent, I had a lot of fun. Again, the student assistants were very helpful and there was a lot of neighborly cooperation in working on our projects. I was impressed with what can be done. If you liked high school geometry, you would have liked this project. I will attach my product even though it is not a finished work of art, but merely an example of what can be done in 45 minutes.”

It was a good day, a very good day!

Imagine getting updates from your favorite web sites delivered directly into your mail inbox. No more having to visit those sites in your browser to find interesting articles. With RSS those “feeds” of information come to you.  You “subscribe” to a feed and then get article summaries to view, almost like email messages. You decide if you want to visit that site or not.  All you need is an RSS “reader” (and for Mac OS X users, one is already built in.)

So by now you may be asking, “what is RSS?” Most commonly it stands for “Really Simple Syndication” and is a special format of XML (Extensible Markup Language) in which all the data is wrapped in tags. These tags allow the data to be understood very easily, which has allowed RSS to flourish worldwide.

For website owners who write content on their site, publishing RSS feeds can be just another path or channel to their site.  And now, many CMS (Content Management Systems) and blog software have RSS feed publishing built in, so there’s nothing extra you as the site owner have to do.  WordPress sites, for example, are some of the easiest ways to have RSS feeds running for all “posts,” or “news updates.”

Sound interesting? Let’s see how easy it is to subscribe to the HMAUS feed in my three step process.

Step 1: Find the feed. On sites with RSS feeds there are usually two places to look; 1) the address bar of your browser, or 2) a button mentioning RSS/Subscribe. Here’s an example with the HMAUS web site showing both of them:

Once you find one of them, simply click on the that link and copy the feed URL (control-c).

Step 2: Add it to Mail. Once you have the feed URL, go to Apple’s Mail program and click File and “Add RSS Feed.”

If you did step 1 correctly and are connected to the Internet, Mail should find the feed and populate it for you. Whenever there is an update, you’ll be notified, just like you are with email.

Step 3: That’s it! You’re done. Let the best of the web come to you!

Now, what if you don’t like Mail or want fancier features? Well, there are plenty of other RSS readers. Desktop apps include free open-source Vienna, free NetNewsWire that syncs with Google Reader, and Times, a beautiful, newspaper-like reader.  For online readers, you can use Google Reader or MyYahoo to name just two.

What other feeds are out there? Most major sites now have RSS feeds available; CNN, NYTimes, MacWorld, and Honolulu Advertiser. Remember to check your favorite sites for feed icons, and you can also subscribe to the HMAUS Twitter feed for real-time updates.

That’s really just scratching the surface of RSS.  If you’d like to know more, or have some great feed suggestions, let us know.

Mark your calendars and plan to spend the day with us on Saturday May 23rd. From 9 – 4pm we are having our semi-annual Fest at the Japanese-American Institute of Management Science, JAIMS 6660 Hawaii Kai Drive. Camera and computer Swapmeet by the Professional Photographers of Hawaii and HMAUS from 9:00 til 3:30.

Place your lunch orders HERE -- Order yours NOW to make sure you’ll get one. Limited quantities except for pre-orders.

Get the a copy of the event flyer HERE.

Free, interesting talks all day long! Neat Door Prizes!   An all star cast!!

9:00 Opening and coffee. Swapmeet opens!
9:30 Cool Apple Stuff

Joe Zaret, Apple Solutions Consultant will update you what’s new, what’s coming in the Apple product line. Then he’ll demo iLife 09 and iWork 09, just out with cool features that will blow you away. Kelvin Kakugawa, Software Developer, will demo why you really do want an iPhone and tell you about how he developed his iPhone app – now available in the iTunes Store!

10:30 Break and Lucky number

10:45 Zen-tested Tech Time Machine

Hang on tight with local tech personality Peter Kay as he takes you through a whirlwind tour that combines great tech tips and time management how-to’s wrapped around Zen-like wisdom. You’ll walk away with techniques you can put to use immediately as well as ideas that can help make a really positive impact on your life. If you’ve never seen Peter “live” don’t miss this event! http;//yourcomputerminute.com

11:45 Lucky number and pickup Lunch (bento for purchase when you arrive, buy early)

12 Andy Bumatai makes Funny Business

Comedian? TV producer and host? Video Blogger? Entrepeneur? All of the above! And where did the Mac come in? Everywhere! How he did it, how you too can not only enjoy your computer, but also turn your passion into a business. http://andybumatai.com

12:45 Lucky number and break.

Concurrent Afternoon Breakouts

Session I 1:00 – 2 pm (3 concurrent topics)

Mac 101 Ross Rasmussen This is a class for newbies, switchers and for people who just haven’t had time to really get to know their Mac. We will look around the desktop, explore at the Dock, get an understanding of the System Preferences, learn some shortcuts and, most importantly, try to answer your questions. This is a good class for people who are switching to Macintosh and want to understand their machine a little better. This session is very low key and relaxed.

Cooking fabulous photographs from RAW to rockin’ with Lightroom!
Learn how to cook up wonderful images with Adobe Lightroom with Eugene Villaluz. Adobe Lightroom is a powerful suite of tools which give photographers the ability to process digital images; manage, catalog and archive files; and prepare finished images for presentation. This presentation will use actual shooting projects in a step-by-step reveal showing how to achieve visual impact with photographs.

SNL – Social Networks and Livefeeds – Burt Lum and Ryan Ozawa of Bytemarks Cafe present the why and how services like Facebook, Twitter work and how to protect your privacy.
Alltop <http://alltop.com> is an online magazine rack with more than 580 topics from A to Z. For many, understanding RSS and building feed readers can be confusing and discouraging. MyAlltop <http://my.alltop.com> allows users to customize their own page with a few simple steps. Alltop’s Chief Evangelist, L.P. “Neenz” Faleafine will demonstrate setting up and organizing your own MyAlltop.

Session II 2:15 – 3:15

iPhoto 09 Explore the new features of iPhoto with Ross Rasmussen and learn how to import and organize your photos, edit them, and share them with friends and family. Attendees are encouraged to bring their cameras and learn how to get the photos from the camera into the computer. Bring your laptop, if you have it!

Website or Blog? Yes you can! – Ever thought you could have a website or a blog up in a half hour, for free, without knowing any programming or buying any software? Well yes you can! Kelvin Kakugawa will show you how to create a website in minutes using a web 2.0 application, what blogs are and why you care, and how to create a good looking free WordPress site. So what do you need webdesigners and programmers for? He’ll show you what else is possible!

BYOC – More than a Point and Shoot Terry Takaki and other PPH photographers. Are you using your pocket camera on Auto all the time? Wonder what those other modes and controls are? Want to now how to set up a shot? Then you’ll want to come to this session. Important – BYOC – Bring Your Own Camera. It’s going to be handson.

3:15 – 4 pm Final Lucky Number Drawings, ICE CREAM and sharing in the cafeteria

Sponsors

Hawaii Macintosh and Apple User’s Society http://www.hmaus.org

Professional Photographers of Hawaii  http://www.pphawaii.org

TAPA Communications  http://www.tapa.com

Peachpit Press  http://www.peachpit.com and

O’Reilly Books  http://oreilly.com