GreerMUG Meeting Highlights -- March 2006

Pre-Game Show
This month we featured the member work of Bill Harrison. A great sampling of the kind of quality CD covers you can create on a Mac. Thanks, Bill!

Opening Moments
Our third meeting found us meeting more new friends as got started at our new meeting time of 7PM. We're hoping this extra time will allow us more time for interaction. If seven o'clock is pushing it for you, come on anyway at 7:15 or 7:30 - there was still plenty of meeting to enjoy. Mike shared a story from the book The Wisdom of Crowds. Even though no one of us knows everything about a Mac, all of us together know quite a bit and we're all looking forward to learning from each other as we grow as a group.

Core Presentation
Shameless plug: TimothyGodby.com has a blog for GreerMUG and other cool Mac stuff. If you visit, post a reply and let Tim know you were there.

This month Matt "with no e" Nadeja introduced us to Swift Publisher, a middle-weight publishing program from BeLight Software. You know a lot of software is being produced these days that falls somewhere between the amateur and professional levels. Matt considers software like this to be in the "Prosumer" category. Pages and Swift Publisher both fit into this category, though Matt thinks Swift Publisher might be considered a notch above Pages. Swift offers more design control which tips it toward the professional end of the scale; Pages is more Drag and Drop with great templates for folks who want to easily produce their publication.

BeLight Software wants to produce software with a simple interface that cloaks a lot of power.

Swift facts:
Swift is already available as an universal binary; it's available for internet download, or you can have a CD shipped to you (The CD has more on it.)
Swift comes with a per user license - put it on whatever machines you use as long as you're only using one at any given time.
And, a full featured trial is available.

Tip within the Core:
Option-Command-Clicking on the Dock icon for Swift Publisher hides everything that Matt has open and switches to just Swift Publisher. Helpful!

Like other publishing programs, Swift does what you'd expect in terms of exporting and importing files; it supports standard file types; works with iPhoto; yada yada yada - Matt says: BIG DEAL! They ALL do that. What sets Swift apart?????

The Image Library!
Here Matt gave us a good demonstration of Swift Publisher's powerful Image Library including features like:
Real Text and Artwork Layering.

Background and Foreground layers.

Image Design and Editing with cool Tiger compatibility.

Wide variety of templates to choose from (these are traditional templates using the copy-and-paste methodology to replace bogus content, the newer drag-and-drop method not supported.)

Navigation tabs help you choose different layers.

Basic tool set - draw a shape, etc.

Matt wants to focus on the clip art drawer which includes not only clip art but stock photos as well. These are high quality photos which are very scalable without loss of quality.

Good stock photos - don't have to worrry about copyright infringement.

And it's totally integrated with iPhoto.

Smart Shapes!
Next Matt showed us another outstanding part of the program:

Smart shapes which have extra controls.

A geometry inspector lets you do a lot to a selected item! (Poor selected item, watch as Matt indulges his inner contortionist with Swift's extra controls. I'm glad I'm not a selected item.)
Flip, rotate, adjust the curve. (Bend it to your will!)

A color inspector gives you a nice set of crayons to choose from. Really.

Very responsive image manipulation.

Swift's ability to apply "masks" to our images is SO cool. You have to play with this to appreciate its deep coolness.

Preview mode takes away all your guidelines - and then puts 'em back!

Swift Publisher costs $39.95 to have the CD shipped to you. The CD includes 23000 images and 100 design templates. That's TWENTY-THREE THOUSAND images!

Swift Publisher as an internet download is only $34.95, but it doesn't include as many images or templates (about 800 images and about 60 templates.) Charles pointed out that Pages only comes bundled with Keynote and folks that just need a publishing program (and not a presentation program) can save a little money with Swift Publisher.

Special Discounts for GreerMUG members...

Click here

A Free Companion Utility
Matt really likes this extra program you can get from BeLight. It's a free download and it's a program called ImageTricks. ImageTricks is basically a user interface that works with Apple's Core Image suite, a collection of image effects that are built right into the operating system! These are nifty image effects that Apple has already made available to all of us.

ImageTricks so totally works with Swift Publisher.

Group question: What are some of the benefits of Pages then, over Swift Publisher?
Group answer: Pages has its very intelligent guidelines for aligning your component, and, if you don't need the more granular control that Swift offers, Pages allows the person without a lot of design experience to quickly produce some high-quality pieces using its professionally-designed templates. Plus, there's that drag-and-drop thing it does.

All in all a great demonstration, Show Notes can't do it justice. If you didn't get to make to our March meeting, we're sorry you missed it.


This coming Saturday is Apple's 30th Anniversary.

Apple is celebrating with NIGHT OF THE THOUSAND STEVE'S!
(aka Macapaloosa 2006)

This Saturday night (April 1st) come to CompUSA, dressed like Steve Jobs and get a coupon from CompUSA. 4PM - 7PM

Sneakers, jeans, black t-shirt - you can be Steve!

Video iPod Demostration
Chuck Fountain, a GreerMUG Charter Member, gave us a great how-to on transferring a video to the video iPod. Wow, what a great iPod demonstration!

Chuck's Powerpoint presentation contains everything you need to know. You can find it here. (coming soon)

Not included in the Powerpoint:
Chuck just found out about iSquint. It's free software that will allow you to skip the need for QuickTime Pro, which makes for a totally free process.

BIG thanks to Chuck Fountain for a great presentation. That Powerpoint had to take some time to put together!

MEMBERS! Do YOU have something that would make a good presentation? Let us know about it. Send us an email.

Member Dock
Charles reminded us during this month's Member Dock that as a user group, we want to reman free and available to everyone. That's why we have no dues or fees required to be a part of the group. Sometimes we do have expenses however. If you'd like to help offset these expenses, visit our re-cycle bin. Old cell phones, old printer cartridges, we can turn them into real money!

Also, if you want to check out some of our March resource books, talk to Charles, we'd love for you to use these!

Give-away
This month's give-away is a copy of Mail-Factory software from BeLight Software. A program to design and print envelopes, shipping and address labels on your Macintosh. Addressing your correspondence has never been easier!

This month's winner:
Mail Factory Software from Belight Software
Wayne Jones - Congratulations!

Questions and Answers
Is there a way to watch Windows media .wmv clips on the Mac?
Yes, get the flip4mac utility. It will convert them. You can learn more at timothygodby.com

Next Month
Coming up next month we'll have a presentation from our local Epson representative. The April meeting will be held right here at the Greer Public Library on Monday, April 24th, starting at 7PM. We're looking forward to a great meeting.

Also, we've got a good meeting coming up in May - especially if you enjoy taking pictures!