Dorchester — Nov 8th 2011
John introduced the meting with 16 members present.
The first presentation was by Michael, who told us about Dragon Dictate.
He showed a video, which introduced the idea of creating a user profile, where the results of training the programme to recognise a user's voice were stored. Even after a short period of training, the ability of the programme to register the spoken word correctly was impressive.
This ability could, as well as preparing a text document, be used to interpret commands, and so automate the preparation and sending of an email, or to do a web search.
Martin then demonstrated, and invited us to identify some old Mac OS software, which had a familiar feel to it, for those with memories of Classic, but, at the same time, bore a striking resemblance, in some respects to OSX.
This question severely taxed even the veterans present.
He then gave us an account of the history of the development of UNIX (upon which OSX depends), in all its variants, since 1969, and explained, with the aid of a 15 foot wide diagram, how the number of variants had progressively increased, and then reduced since that time.
Tom then demonstrated his 3 month old iPad2, and the new iOS 5 features which it exploits. In particular, he demonstrated the Pages app for the iPad, and told us how apps could be organised into folders, and how files could be printed using HP air enabled printers.
The Q&A session focussed on iCloud, and identified that although members have come across a number of problems using iCloud, no-one appears to yet qualified for iCloud guru status. Maybe that will have changed by the time of our next meeting………
One member, perhaps either easily embarrassed, or easily tempted, wished to delete mail without opening it. He was advised to select 'Classic View' in Mail, which permits this manoeuvre to be readily accomplished with no disturbance to either conscience or pocket..
On a more arcane topic, on the relative merits of Apple TV vs the HDMI cable - some opined that Apple TV may not be all it's cracked up to be, but Tom adheres emphatically to the opposite opinion. Time did not permit further examination or elucidation of this issue.
SR
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