Three authors, Art Murchison, Gene Parola and MacKinnon Simpson were given an impossible task, to explain why and how they create and publish in fifteen minute presentations.  They had much more to share and have each generated a list of their top writing tips based on their years of experience.  These tips are deceptively simple, but work. They are linked below.

Gene Parola is a successful author of place based mysteries, humor and hurricanes . His Writing Tips include examples of building content and context.  He adds a Commentary on Editing and Computers.

Art Murchison is transitioning from scientific academic writing to a historical tale about the founder of modern archeology. He offers Tips for New Writers

Mac Simpson‘s first historical pictorial book, which he co-wrote with Bob Goodman, Whalesong, actually made desktop publishing history.  His Top 6 Tips are practical and entertaining – Words • Curiosity • Skepticism • Spellcheck • Save • Learn to Type!

Mark Coker, President of Smashwords.com, shared perspectives on electronic self-publishing with services such as his.  Smashwords distributes your ebook to large number of vendors for free. If the book is sold they keep a percentage.  The risk of unsold volumes disappears. However, it raised an important challenge. How does the consumer filter the thousands of volumes to choose the right book? How does the author get his or her book to come up on top?

A special door prize was a copy of Scrivener 2.2 donated by Literature and Latte (Mac OS X $45).  This writing software helps you organize, rearrange with drag and drop, track and edit your work using outlines, note cards and layouts.  Another door prize was a copy of one of MacSimpson’s books about Hawai’i.

Everyone agreed…

• Books start with an inspiration, a need,  or perhaps a request, then evolve.
• The research process must be done cautiously, then you write, perhaps research more, rewrite and proof.
• A good work is yours alone until you get it’s successfully marketed and sold.
• Their computers, Macs to be specific, contributed increasingly to their efficiency and success.

A hug mahalo to our presenters and to everyone who came.  Keep writing!

Lion, Apple’s latest operating system, was released this July.  This month Jerome Koehler, Apple Solutions Consultant presented some of its best features for HMAUS.  Here are a few:

• Finger swipe gestures can be used on your laptop trackpad or an attached Magic Trackpad ($69) on a compatible iMac.
• Launch Pad displays all of your applications as icons on your Desktop, just like an iPhone or iPod.  Drag one to the Dock to make a shortcut. Drag one over another to create folder. Delete it by clicking and holding until it wiggles, then click the “X”. 
• Mission Control displays your open documents and multiple Desktops you can create to open different sets of documents or applications instead of having them all in one window.
• Resume lets you leave windows and documents open when you Quit. Restart, and everything is just as it was.
• Double-click a word and the dictionary and its meaning displays.

Here are more features from the lifehacker.com blog  ”Top 10 Secret Features in Mac OS X Lion” Watch the Apple Lion video here

Should you update to Lion? Perhaps you should, perhaps not.  As with any new OS there are bugs to be handled before maximal performance can be achieved. Lion 10.7.1 update has already been released. (Scroll to the bottom of the list on the downloads page).  Here are some built-in changes that also “bug” people.

• Not all applications are Lion compatible. Jerome recommended checking with Roaringapps.com, which has a fairly well updated compatibility table.
• Lion has a few default settings that irritate some people. For example, scroll bar on the right is hidden. Here is a fix.  Unhide Scrollbars
• “Natural Scrolling”:  Scrolling with your mouse is now the opposite of what you’re used to, unless you’re used  to an iPhone or iPad.  To move up on the screen you scroll up, just as you would with a piece of paper on your physical desk.  When you get used to it, it’s said to be more intuitive. If you do want to stop “reverse scrolling” anyway, click the Apple menu and choose System Preferences.  In the Hardware section click the Mouse icon. Uncheck “Scroll Direction: Natural”.  Do the same for the trackpad if you wish.

Can you update to Lion? Perhaps.

• It depends on your computer processor and available space.  Power Macs are no longer compatible, and perhaps some early Intel Macs. http://www.apple.com/macosx/how-to-buy/ Make sure you backup in Time Machine and/or an external drive or in cloud storage first. Jerome shared the backup 3-2-1 recommendation: 3 places, 2 kinds of media and 1 location in a different location (building) from your computer.
• Lion must be installed on top of Snow Leopard, which is also $29.  Lion is purchased from the App Store for $29.  Just search for Lion then click Buy.  If you can’t or don’t want to go online you can purchase a thumb drive with Lion on it, for $69.   The good news is you can install it on all of your computers.  Just login to the App Store with your Apple ID, locate Lion and click to download and install it again. .

So it seems Lion is well worth considering, and although it comes on all new Macs, your choice to upgrade depends on a lot of things.

Mac Apps You Can Use!

HMAUS will be presenting a number of interesting workshops.  Everyone welcome. Register by clicking the link for the workshop.

August 6, 2011 Create Project Lab 9 a.m. – 1 p.m.  This is an open lab just for HMAUS members to create their own projects using the iLife and iWork products.  There will be minireviews 9:45 -10:15  iPhoto, Keynote and 11:45 – 12:15 iMovie and Pages.  Join the review or just keep working on your project.  Free but please click the link to register for a seat.

August 6, 2011 Screen Capture 101 1 p.m. – 3 p.m.  Learn how to customize your built-in screen capture shortcuts to make them more practical, use SnapNDrag, a free screen capture software to drag and drop captures into your documents, and use Jing, another free capture program that also takes 5 minute videos.  Why?  To save things on your computer screen to share, ask for help, or save a video playing on your computer.  You upload it to Screencast.com and share with a link for free.  Snagit for Mac is not free, but you’ll see why its worth the bucks. This is a repeat presentation. Free but please click the link to register for a seat.

August 27, 2011 25DollarTravel with Marco Morawec.  1 p.m. – 3 p.m.   Are you a traveler? Do you want to know how to have a

good time but spend less money doing it? How does doing a day for less than the cost of two lunches back home sound? Marco Morawec, a shoestring travel expert, has traveled to almost 40 countries and just completed his around the world adventure.  He’ll tell you about catching a cab in New Dehli, eating steamed sheep head in Morocco and how to organize, finance and make your trip of a lifetime happen.  Marco also covers different travel blogging strategies, building and audience, tracking the traffic on your blog and goals measuring. 

If you like traveling, hearing funny stories from around the world and dig blogging, then this session is for you.

INGDirect Cafe.   FREE but please register for seating:  http://tinyurl.com/25dollartravel

September 24 2011 Mail, Addressbook and iCal 12 p.m. – 3 p.m. Ross Rasmussen. Learn to use Apple Mail, a convenient way to have access to your mail accounts, whether MobileMe, Gmail or UH Mail.  Mail autocompletes email addresses, can add addresses and phone numbers in messages to your Addresssbook.   iCal is Apple’s online calendar. Make as many calendars as you wish, and view them in a combined calendar if you wish.   $5 Please click the link to register.

Workshops are held at ING Direct Cafe, Waikiki.  Free parking in the adjoining lot off Niu St., or behind the Cafe.   Hope to see you!

Date/time: December 4, 2010  Saturday 9:00 – 1:30 with a no-host lunch break.  Cost:  $7.  Includes handouts and a beverage.
Location:  ING Direct Cafe 2nd floor Ali’i Conference room. Free parking.
Bring:  Your laptop or iMac if you wish, or share one of 2 laptops we will bring to share.
Register:  http://bit.ly/bootcamp1-hmaus.   Minimum of 6 by 12/1 , Maximum of 12 so please register ASAP. Pay at the door.

Hope to see you!  This is just the first of 3 Boot Camps and is your base camp, all fun and surprisingly useful! Join us!

Picnik lets you do all the basic edits (crop, sharpen, lighten/darken, resize), like iPhoto.  But you can also add a picture frame, text, clipart and special effects to all or part of a photo. Upload – edit – download. Simple!  It’s web based so it works on Mac or PC.  We’ll also make a FREE drag and drop web page with tabblo.com, owned by HP.   Very cool! Very fun!

When:  Thursday Oct. 14 from 6 pm – 7:30 p.m. Bring your laptop if you have one or come and listen or share.

Where:  ING Direct Cafe 1958 Kalakaua Avenue.  Free parking.
Cost: $5 including a $1.50 beverage.

Register http://bit.ly/picnik_register
Bring a friend. Everyone welcome.

Too busy to come or want to see what Picnik is about? Click here for a preview.  http://bit.ly/previewpicnik

These are two of the three power houses in iWork 09. Check out iWork at www.apple.com/iwork/tutorials/#pages

When:  Saturday September 25 from  9 a.m. – 3 p.m.
Where: ING Direct Café 1958 Kalakaua Avenue.
Cost: $15 for HMAUS members, $25 for non-members.  Includes two beverages and handouts.

Bring your laptop with  your own or a trial vesion of iWork 09.   If you don’t have a laptop there will be 1 or 2 to share.

Instructors: 
Ross Rasmussen is a HMAUS member and long time Mac trainer.  He was the Windward Adult School Teacher of the Year!
Jerome Koehler is the Apple Solutions Consultant at Best Buy Aiea and a former Apple Store Genius.

Web 1.0 was the information web. Web 2.0 is the “interactive web”.  The user has became the creator of content, and interaction is prime.  They’re set up for folks who do not have specialized web skills – they’re user friendly.  Several cool Web 2.0 apps and sites were shared at our June 24th M2M session. Here are some of them.

Delicious.com, a social bookmarking site.  Create yourself a free account, then use it to save and access your bookmarks anytime you are on the internet, or find the bookmarks of other delicious.com users based on tags or keywords they give their finds.  Your bookmarks are shared unless you choose to make them private.  Jody Yamamoto, who teaches at KCC showed us how to create tag bundles for grouping your tags, sending your finds to another user’s inbox, and creating a network or Subscribing so links automatically come to your delicious account.   Download a handout from drop.io/hmaus_maclearn.

Jing  www.jingproject.com answered Marcy Katz’s need to see videos of her grandchildren without bloating her email account.  Jing is the answer – it captures either stills that can be labeled and marked, or up to 5 min high quality videos of an area of your screen you draw out.  Click Share and it automatically uploads to Screencast.com.  You are given a URL which you save and share to view your image or movie.  You can immediately paste it into a chat or email, sharing it instantly.  Cool!  Watch their intro tutorial, very easy.

Dropbox and ZumoDrive are file storage and sharing services.  They work similarly in many respects – both give you up to 2 GB of space, place a button on your Desktop toolbar once installed, allow you to drag and drop files and folders into your cloud account either right on your computer or via their website.  You can then set your other computers and devices to access documents you uploaded to your cloud, and with the hybrid feature, docs on your computer.

Though primarily to access your own files, you can also share a folder or file with others. ZumoDrive has a mobile app, Supersize Me. You can stream your iTunes library from your computer, saving iPhone/iPad space.  Reviews put these two apps pretty much neck and neck with DropBox being a little more stable and ZumoDrive conserving your storage space better and streaming music.  Your choice.  As an alternative to email attachments, thumb drives and CDs/DVDs, these hybrid cloud storage is a good alternative. Of course each has a “premium” for money version but try the freebies first. Not everything worked the way these tutorials said they would, but check them out and see how they work.  Tutorials  Zumodrive Tutorials: Dropbox

Drop.io.com is another fire storage/sharing site that can be expanded to a community with live chat, an email address, RSS feed and customizable layouts for each user.  Go to dropio.com and type a name for your site.  Create an administrator account if you want to customize it and you’re set. You set your guests privileges – add, delete or view and download only.

Click the Add button, locate a file on your computer and click Upload.  As administrator you can also delete items.  That’s it.  Anyone who goes to the site can download, or your can set access by document.  Each “drop” can only hold 100 MB of stuff, but you can have as many free drops as you like.   Visit http://drop.io/hmaus_maclearn page and download any of the handouts we’ve posted for you.  Create yourself a free drop.io site and try it out!  Tutorial

Shortcut Tips of the day: While on any web page, to enter a URL (web address) to go to a new page, just press Cmd-L and start typing.  The web address box is automatically highlighted and what you type replaces what was there.  Just press return and off you go.

You can also type search words into the URL box and press return instead of clicking back  into the Google or Bin box to search.    Neat!  Mahalo Gregg Kamei for the tip!