Dorchester — May 8th 2012

We welcomed 25 members to this month's meeting, which must be at least approaching some sort of a record. One of the reasons for such a large turn out, despite the temptations of a fine Spring evening, was undoubtably the promise of Mick's presentation on the subject of iCloud.

We started, however, with a test of the improvements to the Colliton Club's Wi-Fi feed. This proved to be easier to use than previously, and appeared to support FaceTime and also Skype. It seems that iChat poses a more significant problem.

Mick's promised talk on iCloud, although quite detailed, was successful in dispelling much of the quasi - atmospheric iFog with which the electronic iCloud had been enveloped. He gave clear instructions on how to set up iCloud on Macs running Lion (OSX10.7.2 or later), and iPads and iPhones running iOS5, as well as explaining more arcane mysteries, for example the importance of me.com accounts when synchronising mail, and also for sharing calendars. He has produced a .pdf file containing the advice presented, available on request.

Following the interval, Tom provided yet more evidence of the benefits of owning an iPad by giving a live demonstration of the Brushes app, as used by David Hockney to produce many of the drawings for his exhibition at the Royal Academy. The app appeared to be easy to use, and Tom had brought along a few drawings created by his wife, which excited admiration, and appeared to inspire a desire among many to invest the required Â£5.50, and have a go themselves. The fingers can be used for drawing, but Tom recommended the Nomad brush costing Â£25, as a more precise instrument to use with the iPad.

In the Q&A session which followed, the point was raised that what appeared to be a faulty external disc drive could well be the consequences of a power supply failure, which would have less damaging consequences in terms of cost and data loss.
SR

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