Mesh Routers

At the September 25 meeting of SBAMUG, Kent McDonald will explain the rationale for using mesh routers to provide improved Wi-Fi coverage in your home. An actual installation with a single access point in a large, five bedroom home is described. The Wi-Fi signal strength is mapped throughout the house to see where the signal strength is inadequate. A mobile-phone app is used to map the signal strength. A mesh network is then configured to provide good signals everywhere in the house. A three-node mesh network is selected and installed; then the new network is mapped to show that the Wi-Fi signal is indeed strong everywhere inside the house with the new equipment.

Table Top or Potpourri

The main presentation will be a table top (several simultaneous presentations) or a potpourri (one presentation at a time). A possible topic is Pinterest/Social Media led by Nancie Silver. Other topics will be chosen between now and Aug 28. If you have any preference for the format, or suggestions for the topic and/or presenter, send an email to info@sbamug.com. Your suggestions may not incorporated into this meeting due to time constraints, but will certainly be considered for future meetings.

July 31 Meeting

Mac Shortcuts, by Kent McDonald

Mac operating system software provides numerous shortcuts that enable users to perform routine tasks more easily. However, we need to refresh our bag of tricks occasionally since our daily routines evolve over time. At our July 31 SBAMUG meeting, Kent McDonald will review the Mac shortcuts that you may have forgotten, or just were not available in earlier versions of Mac software. The presentation will draw upon material from online sources such as MacMost, Mac journals such as MacLife, and Don McAllister’s ScreenCastsOnline videos. You may be very happy to discover a couple of shortcuts that you will use every day. We will also share our favorite shortcuts with the rest of the members present, so think about that.

What’s Coming from Apple this Fall, by George Wilde

The first week of June featured Apple’s annual weeklong World Wide Developers Conference with more than 100 presentations aimed at the over 1000 developers attending the conference. However, the first morning of this conference featured an Apple Keynote Address announcing significant software updates coming to all Apple devices this fall.

I will be presenting a top level overview of what Apple publicly announced that may affect SBAMUG members, including the major new features of iOS 13, iPadOS 13 (yes, iPad now has an OS of its own), macOS 10.15 Catalina – the successor to macOS Mojave, watchOS 6, tvOS 13, and changes to HomePod, and CarPlay. During my presentation I will indicate what devices each of the updates work with. However, just because you can upgrade to the new software, should you? This is particularly a good question to ask regarding macOS Catalina, because many of your older Apps may not run on it. Catalina is no longer compatible with 32-bit Apps and includes security and privacy features that may require changes to some other Apps. I will discuss how you can identify all of your existing 32-bit Apps to ascertain what potential problems you may have.

Subscriptions to computer software and services has become a major source of income in the computer industry. Apple is introducing several new subscription services in addition to the several subscription services that Apple already has. You will have to pay monthly or yearly fees to use these new services. I will discuss the subscription services that Apple currently has as well as those it will be offering in the near future.

Beyond the Simple Selfie, by Don Stouder

iPhones have gotten to the point where they can take superb quality and creative photographs and videos. Improvements to the camera, apps, and available accessories have allowed this to happen.

This presentation will explore the capabilities of the current camera in the iPhone and the special capabilities of Apple’s Camera and Photos apps. In addition, selected third party apps and accessories that expand upon those provided by Apple will be addressed.

Our SBAMUG meeting on March 27 will feature a presentation by Allison Sheridan, who will describe a software tool that is handy when you have the occasion to control your Mac or some other person’s Mac remotely. The software application, Jump Desktop, is available for your Mac or IOS device. The application needed for the remotely-controlled Mac is called Jump Desktop Connect, and is free of charge. Allison is one of our favorite presenters and is also a member of SBAMUG. Allison has made this presentation available via Sceencasts Online.

Also, Arnold Silver will demonstrate Air Drop,an Apple feature that lets iOS devices (iPhones, iPads, ) and Macs to share almost anything wirelessly, easily, and securely at almost any time and anywhere.  It is most often used to transfer photos or video clips, but is much more versatile.  This short presentation will demonstrate how to enable AirDrop and transfer photos.

Potential SBAMUG Presentation Topics

1.       Whole home Wi-Fi. How to extend Wi-Fi throughout your larger homes using bridging or mesh networks to achieve good performance throughout your home without dead spots. Emerging standards show promise for greater speed and performance. 41%

2.       Social Networking – the past, current status, and trends. Some of the early social networks have faded (e.g.; myspace), others have died, numerous new ones have emerged. What does the future hold? And all have privacy and security issues which need to be recognized. 27%

3.       Fonts and font management on your Mac. All about font families, Bitmapped fonts, TrueType fonts, OpenType fonts, Postscript fonts, Unicode fonts, etc and the tools to manage them, such as Font Book, FontDoctor, Suitcase Fusion, etc. Discussion regarding using font styles, glyphs, font spacing and kerning. 23%

4.       The Home App and Home Automation. How you can automate your home using automation to view and control your home both at home and away using your iPhone or iPad. You can control and automate lights, heating, air conditioning, sprinklers, locks, surveillance cameras, alarm systems, shades, door locks and much more. 23%

5.       The iPhone camera and photo Apps. The iPhone camera system is very powerful. Some iPhones contain both telephoto and wide angle lenses. You can shoot high resolution photos and even high quality UHD videos. You can shoot time-lapse, slo-mo, video, normal photos, square photos, portraits, and panoramas. And you can shoot live pictures and HDR. You can even access and manipulate the raw photos and control depth of field. Many third party Apps provide additional features.  55%

6.iOS 12 (or whatever Apple decides to call it). The next version of iOS will be      announced in June or July at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference.   This presentation would be an overview of upcoming new features. 36%

7.    How to publish and sell your first eBook. What tools are required and how do you do it.  18%

8.    How to block unwanted calls on an iPhone. 41%

9.    The Internet as an Educational Resource. If you want to learn, the internet is a tremendous resource. Khan Academy is a terrific free learning resource for many subjects from Math to Art History. TED has many great educational presentations. Stanford University and MIT, among others, have free college level courses on many subjects. Stanford University even offers the actual video-taped course on iPhone Application Development offered every year, which even Stanford students have a difficult time to enroll in because of its popularity. 32%

Numbers vs Excel

I’ve been using Excel since about 1997. But I haven’t upgraded from Office 2008 since I want to be able to use the program on both my iMac and MacBook without paying for 2 copies. But I have been having occasional problems with Excel under Sierra and I frequently have to do a Force Quit get the program to quit, and performance won’t improve under High Sierra or Mojave.

When I learned that Apple had made its iWork apps free for Sierra OS, I immediately downloaded them and started trying them out. I will show you the similarities and differences in what Numbers and Excel can do in spreadsheets. I’ll also show you some problems that can arise in importing Excel spreadsheet into Numbers and in exporting Numbers spreadsheet into Excel.

Numbers is unique in that acts like a page layout program with tables and charts and also supports interactive manipulation, while Excel is oriented to a large table grid with the ability to add charts.

Joan King

Mojave, the latest Mac OS, will be the subject of a presentation by Jim Pernal. The presentation will include the requirements for using this system, how to upgrade, why you should upgrade, and finally a few of the new features in the system with some demos. Some of the new features are Dark Mode, Stacks, and new supplied apps.