GreerMUG November 2006 Meeting Highlights


Pre-Game Show

This month we treated the group to a, well, it was a, um, sort of like we didn't have an opening show, and then, you see, the music stopped, and Tim, no, Matt, oh, never mind....

Opening Moments

Mike welcomed everybody to the meeting and then took a moment to wax eloquently on a program called SubEthaEdit from the Coding Monkeys in Germany. SubEthaEdit is a text editor that allows MULTIPLE cursors from MULTIPLE participants in ONE text document. Yeah, baby. SubEthaEdit takes advantage of our Macs abilities to easily network using Bonjour. Oui. Great opening demo. It's one of those truly geeky moments that you just have to be there for, show notes can't do it justice. Sorry if you missed it.

By the way, we did all of show notes throughout the evening in SubEthaEdit with help from Matt and Andy. Thanks for your help, guys! Unfortunately, when we saved the text document, we lost the color coding that identified everyone's contribution. You can find the results of the Coding Monkeys efforts and check out
SubEthaEdit for yourself at http://www.codingmonkeys.de.


Member Dock

Matt updated us on fundraiser stuff and explained to us how, as group members, we can save a little money every now and then by taking advantage of the discounts available to the group.

You can read about how it works by going to our website http://www.greermug.com/ and clicking on " Member Perks ".Matt discussed a little bit about the function and nature of a user group.

You can read about it on page 1 of our current newsletter.Matt has really enjoyed the participation of the members in the past couple of meetings and has benefited from the member's input. Thanks, members!! Because, like, you know, Matt needs all the help he can get ( SHOW NOTES DID NOT JUST SAY THAT!!! )


Interlude ( read this part with Jeopardy music going in your head )

In the interim while Matt's setting up for our Core Presentation, we have a question about what Bonjour is. Mike takes the question.

- Bonjour used to be called Rendezvous
- It's Apple's mechanism for automatic discovery of other networked devices
- Good example is SubEthaEdit's sharing capability
- Great example is printers
- Also known as ZeroConf in the Windows/Linux world

Tim's co-worker at church had added a Bonjour-enabled printer, so he was surprised to find a 'Bonjour Printer' in his printer list, and his co-worker was surprised to have a printout at her desk.


Core Presentation

Tonight's Core Presentation is a look at Delicious Library!

A few people in the audience have copies of this software, but it is new for most of us. Matt is going to do something a little different with this demo and start way back at the beginning.

Matt digresses: he was trying to think of an opener and earlier he had downloaded a Hefty Cinch-Sack commercial. It hit him! The perfect opener: November 14, 2006. Under "Hefty Hefty Hefty" we'd have GreerMUG meeting, under "wimpy, wimpy wimpy", we'd have "Microsoft launches Zune". The crowd appreciated the contrast with
laughter.

The reason Matt is starting from the beginning is because he wants to demonstrate the ease of software installation on a Mac.

Matt gets frustrated with Windows when software installs require so many re-starts. Matt wants to show us a simple Mac software install - how easy the Mac makes it for us. So he begins by installing the Delicious Library software. Drag the downloaded install file to the Applications folder and before you know it, you're ready to go! It doesn't get much easier.

Matt launches Delicious Library. Delicious Library is library software that allows you to catalog and inventory any collection you have in your home or business. The obvious usage is for books, but you can use it for your CD collection, home furnishings, anything you can think of! When you add an item, there's a lot of information you can record about the item. Delicious is set up to work with Amazon. Enter a book and Delicious will try to look it up at Amazon and download its info as well as an image.

( Andy notes - Works for books, movies, and music - integrated with Amazon... other things don't autopopulate so well )

Delicious also keeps track of the location of the items in your library so you remember where the item is stored in your home ( hall bookcase vs. office storage ). Also keeps track of purchase dates, whether it is signed by the author.

What if you click on Similar. Wow! It goes to Amazon and searches for products ( books in this case ) that are similar. Member question: my Similar doesn't go to Amazon. Answer: we probably have to check your preferences.

Matt disavows any knowledge of the items included in the starter data included with the demonstration version of Delicious. Matt would normally start with a fresh empty collection, but we're using the demo data so he can show us how Delicious can track folks who BORROW your books! Really?? Cool!! Hey, look! A list of potential
borrowers is already there! Members of Matt's family! Smart, Delicious, very smart. It read Matt's Address book. It will use their picture if it is available in your address book. If their picture is not available, Delicious is smart enough to add a male icon for the guys and a female icon for the gals based on the gender indication of his / her name.

You can add your own collections, either your own manual choices or a collection based on information such as location.

Delicious has two views: bookshelf view and list view. Matt likes the book shelf view. There are many, many ways to sort and arrange your libraries.

The search bar works just like Spotlight, as soon as you start typing it starts narrowing down your collection.Isn't that just like a Mac? It also sounds a little like Flock.

You can use Spotlight itself to bring up items in your Delicious Library, it will launch if it is not already running.

Delicious also gives you a neat little widget. Use the widget to do quick lookups.

SIDE DEMO! Matt's Krispy Kreme Widget -- enter the zip code and it brings up the nearest Krispy Kreme location.

Matt wants to show us how we can add things. There are different ways you can add. The manual way is to just type in an ISBN off the back of the book. Delicious announces what it has added.

What about card games? Matt has a lot of them. They have UPC codes on the back. Can it handle that? Matt goes into Add mode and tries. YES IT CAN! Now when Matt did that, he got to thinking. (Insert cartoon balloon here.) What about the neighbor that wants to borrow your circular saw? So Matt adds an item and calls it Circular Saw. But wait no picture...yet. Matt drags a picture of his circular saw from his desktop. Voilà ! He can now enter and track his tools.

Matt hooks up an iSight camera. ( Whatever camera is used must be able to do the Firewire thing ). A camera view launches on the computer screen. See the red lines on the screen ? Oh my ! It's a bar code scanner !!!! Now you can scan your books and CD's into your Delicious Library using a Firewire-connected video camera !

The group is thinking: you can do this for insurance purposes.

You can track who borrows your stuff. Library due dates can show up in iCal and the borrowers get email reminders from your Address Book and Mail.

Matt dragged the circular saw down onto Bill's picture, and it sets up a reminder in iCal and will send an email to remind Bill.

Tim says and Matt shows that you can choose different countries with Amazon stores to find information on some of those hard-to-find items.

Ready to try or buy?

Visit the Delicious website at: http:// www.delicious-monster.com. Delicious Library costs $40. With the group discount ( available until the end of the month ) it is only $30.

That gives you an idea of what you can do with Delicious Library. Thanks, Matt! Very cool software.


Questions and Answers

How did you make the screen get bigger and smaller?

Go into System Preferences and choose Universal Access. You can turn on Zoom for your screen here.Scrolling trackpad will zoom in and out if you hold down the control
key (with Zoom turned on.)

What about more on iWeb ?

What about more on iWeb? A girl at Eleven Mystics ( http://www.11mystics.com/blog/ ) has created several templates for iWeb. Check it out!

Give-away
Congratulations to Diana Albin who won this month's give away, a copy of Delicious Library!


SHAMELESS PLUG ALERT !
Check out Tim's blog at TimothyGodby.com. A cool Mac blog - it coolness begs for your interaction. Tim has done a great job pulling together lots of news and stories of interest to the Mac community. Check out the latest today!


Next Month
Matt, what about next month's meeting? Matt: It's December 12th and it's Food Time!! Yippee!! Member pot luck! Bring finger foods, cookies, pies, other desserts, we'll have a great time together. Maybe we'll have some sneek peaks at 2007, too.