Dorchester — Sep 13th 2016

John Hooper suggested that most of us never dig very deeply into the Settings on either IOS or Mac OS devices, and that it is well worth taking an in-depth look at Settings as it offers many useful and customisable options. As they pretty well parallel each other, he concentrated on IOS. Firstly he showed the structure of the Settings menu and how these can bring up nested subsidiary settings by selecting an item. Settings are not just for System software but each App whether Apple or Independent can have settings. It is John offered many suggestions, but tapping at the top of the screen to jump back to the top of a list is a great tip. Accessibility under the General heading is full of interesting options. There was a discussion about the Night Shift option which provides a warmer screen more conducive to quieting the brain before sleep. On a more jaunty level John showed us how the legal terms and conditions go on for ever under General > About > Legal. Under General > Language and Region > iPad Language there are a great many options. John’s advice is, before changing any significant setting take a note of what the current settings are first. In Discussion highlighted that, for those using iCloud Key Chain, Setting > Safari > Passwords is very useful. We also looked at Personal Hotspot on SIM enabled devices.

Michael demonstrated Expression Media (EM) but was rather disappointed that he could only locate one reasonably priced copy on the internet. The software is a form of easily managed data base for images. Images can be held in folders all over the place but by dragging the image file onto the EM interface, the original file is not moved but just a thumbnail displayed in the data base. Clicking on the thumbnail opens up the full size image, as long as the original file is available to the system and not sitting on a disconnected drive. There are some editing features but this is primarily library management software with a wide range of sort facilities. You can create many levels of sub-catalogue e.g.: England > Dorset > Dorchester > Colliton Club. You create specialist albums, say Birds, simply by selecting and dragging thumbnails into a new blank catalogue. This is ideal software for anyone with a large number of photos who prefers to keep them in simple files and not lost into the special structures of iPhoto or Photos. Not only will the data base handle photos but you can include text files, music etc. The software was originally created by a Danish Company, then taken over by Microsoft but is now marketed by Phase One, at a single user price €189. However Amazon UK are offering one copy “from £35”.Link

Euan gave us a brief preview of what we can look forward to in Mac OS Sierra due to be available later this month including Siri and Copy-Paste between Mac and IOS amongst many other tweeks and improvements. He emphasised the importance of managing macOS upgrades systematically and not just clicking on the update. There was a really useful discussion on this topic and we concluded that a sensible, if not minimum procedure should be 1) Repair your System by starting up in Safe Boot i.e. hold down the Shift key on start up until the progress bar appears (ignore the screen flashing with warns that you are in Safe Boot mode). Once SB start up is complete, restart normally. 2) Make a clone of your drive (or partition) containing the system on an erased external drive or partition. 3) Download and Install Sierra. For the most reliable results, and to preserve the option of starting up either on Sierra or El Capitan while non-Apple Apps settle down, use this method: having followed steps 1-2, install Sierra on a freshly erased partition on your internal drive, then migrate your data from your clone or your other (El Capitan) partition using Utilities > Migration Assistant.

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