Bournemouth — Jun 21st 2011

The meeting started with Lionel's presentation on the varied – and in some cases unexpected – uses of Front Row. This is a much under-used application that comes with the Mac, though latterly the handset has been sold separately as an extra, for £15.00 Lionel pointed out that this was a very useful and time-saving method of watching movies, dvds and photos, and of listeing to music inasmuch as it is not necessary to open the individual applications, such as iTunes or iPhoto etc, because the media files are accessed directly from Front Row. One point that can be quite important to those not using iPhoto or Aperture is that photographs can only be accessed if they are stored in either of these applications, and presumably the same stricture applies to movies, dvds and music (iMove or Final Cut, iDVD and iTunes respectively). However the slide-show for photos is really very good, and the music and other media files are also well presented.

One neat thing that Lionel pointed out was that the handset battery is found by depressing the small dimple in the base of the handset with a pointed object (ball-point, pencil etc.) upon which the battery tray slides out.

Before we broke for tea and biscuits, Michael Scruton put a problem to the assembled brains, with random individual photographs not downloading from his camera, which created a discussion during which suggestions were made as to the cause and cure - we wait to hear from Michael if any were successful.

After the break Gordon Clyne showed the unsuspected complexity that lies in the structure of an application for the iPhone or iPad. This was quite a technical demonstration, but extremely clearly set out so that we could all go away with a better understanding of what is required to build such an application. And probably, unless used to writing programs, to think of other ways of spending time on our Macs!

Finally, Michael Corgan mentioned the computer exhibition planned for this coming October at ExCEL in London's Docklands. The organisers of LITS - the London International Technical Show? - have been asked if they will let UK & Irish Mac User groups have a freee stand at the show, as has been the case at Mac Expos over these years past. The organisers are willing to do that but before committing to the stand, and calling on MUGs for volunteers to man it (presumably in 2 hour shifts as previously) we are waiting to see the list of Mac-oriented companies that have agreed to exhibit, or which are considering exhibiting. If this proves to be worthwhile there will be a call for volunteers.

And the last item on the agenda for the evening was a suggestion that future Bournemouth meetings start from the later time of 7.00 to allow people time to get home from work and/or eat prior to coming along. Please let Michael know your views on this point and if, as with those present last evening, it is generally considered a better idea, then the August meeting will move to that time. He needs to know by the end of June to let Solutions know.

Comments

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Lionel Ogden said…

Sadly it would appear that Front Row has been discontinued from the new version of OSX (Lion)
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