++ MAUS Meeting Summaries

Allowing the summary of a previous meeting to be detailed so that people who didn’t attend can catch up

QR Codes

The question of whether people are using QR codes in their business was raised.

There was debate on what they were and how they are being used.

My personal view (stated on the evening)  is that their current application is gimmicky rather than real – and arguably ahead of being ‘ready for prime time’.

I have seen them used on business cards for easy sharing of contact information. Others have observed them in newspapers like Maui Time – but real returns as yet unknown.

I did share this URL on the evening as a truly CREATIVE application of using QR codes, but this is not to be taken as a business case – but does serve to demonstrate that such technology like this can be used in VERY interesting ways – and like so much is really limited by the imagination of the application of the use – rather than the technology.

For raw technology, this article popped into my sphere of interest just this morning. Enjoy.

Why QR Codes are failing.

To Quote Sean Cummings:

People will not adopt a technical solution that serves to replace a manual task, if that solution is less efficient than the manual task it replaces. How could we think that QR codes for marketing would work any better than CueCat? Did we not learn the first time?

To Quote John Gruber:

QR codes are built for machines, not humans.

By MAUS Administrator, ago

Meeting Summary : August

A good meeting – where we primarily went through and discussed the Lion set up process. As promised – the site you need to check your software compatibility for the Mac is :

Roaring Apps

Useful Links that came up in the meeting re streaming over the air …

Soundflower : For Lion : https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2586101?start=15&tstart=0

Airfoll : http://rogueamoeba.com/airfoil/mac

As always – don’t hesitate to connect with me if I missed something that you wanted to remember from the meeting – or forgot to ask.

By MAUS Administrator, ago

Meeting Summary : July

Note to self – get better writing meeting summary posts.

Apologies, sitting quietly this morning and realized that I hadn’t actually posted anything about the last meeting. This is it. It will be brief.

The meeting centered around Lion – which if memory serves – had been released that day !

The most important take away – PowerPC Apps will no longer work under Lion – so careful. Want to know the status of all the other apps you use under Lion – check out this link.

http://roaringapps.com/apps:table

Look forward to seeing you all at tonights meeting – and will try harder to get a more timely summary posted to the blog!

By MAUS Administrator, ago

Meeting Summary : June

Not as many links to go through for this month, since the June meeting focussed on Apple’s WWDC announcements and what it means to Apple Users.

  • Lion
  • iOS 5
  • iCloud

We won’t replay everything here – suffice to say – if you want to learn what is going on at a high level – some great videos and commentaries on Apple’s own web site.

Watch The Keynote

Learn More About iOS 5

Learn More About Lion

Learn More About iCloud

We also spent some more time going through the Malware episode – and reviewed Rick’s two videos on how to remove it if you get infected. Check out the post here.

We further announced the re-introduction to the Pro Level membership.$10 per month to get access to the Pro Level, that could more than pay for itself in a single transaction.

Those members that joined the Pro level last night will be receiving a unique email with details of how to access the special offers on our website – as well as get listings to your business on the site – and post advertising for products you might want to sell.

We also discussed the idea of introducing a forum, which is definitely on the cards – but step by step. To reiterate comments last night – if there are specific questions you have – feel free to ask us through email – and we will respond through email if we can quickly. If not – we will include it in the discussion at the next meeting – and post responses into this stream.

Once again – apologies for the up and ‘down-ness’ of Facebook and the blog over the past 24 hours – partly due to going live with this very blog. As said earlier – hopefully normal service is resumed – don’t hesitate to let me know if you find any problems.

By MAUS Administrator, ago

Meeting Summary : May

May Meeting Tips, Tricks and Links that we discussed …. later than we would normally want to publish …. but this is the set of links that we discussed in the May Meeting. First and most important are the two links that Rick generated in the session that provides video help.

‘How To’ Video Links From Rick
1 – Merge a PDF – Video Here
2 – Parallels Question – Video Here

The rest of these links were all discussed at the meeting. Hope you find them useful.

Apple Links
Apple’s Support Site : http://www.apple.com/support/
Pro Tips from Apple UK : http://www.apple.com/uk/pro/tips/
Apple Support Communities : https://discussions.apple.com/index.jspa
Mac Basics : http://www.apple.com/findouthow/mac/
iPad Guided Tours : http://www.apple.com/ipad/guided-tours/

Fixing Stuff
i Fix It : http://www.ifixit.com/
Devon Think : http://www.devon-technologies.com/products/devonthink/
Anti Virus From Sophos : http://www.sophos.com/en-us/products/free-tools/sophos-antivirus-for-mac-home-edition.aspx

Tutorials
Screen Cast Online : http://www.screencastsonline.com/newindex-live.php
Lynda DOT Com : http://www.lynda.com/

Keyboard Shortcuts
Mac Rumours : http://guides.macrumors.com/Keyboard_shortcuts
Apple : http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1343

EBook Management
Calibre : http://calibre-ebook.com/

Video Links
Mac Pro Video : http://www.macprovideo.com/

By MAUS Administrator, ago

Meeting Summary : April

The whole meeting was run through an iPad – topic was ‘all things mobile’

  • reviewed some of the more popular apps on the iPad
  • discussed back up and security
  • looked at cloud based file systems like dropbox and iDisk
  • went through MobileMe

    • Those of you out there that attended – please contact me at jphilpin@me.com if I missed any significant topics – and I will edit this post.

    We also had a 5 minute overview of The Maui Camera Club from John Hugg – see his web site here. Personally, I see a great deal of overlap and commonality between our two organizations – hope we get some cross pollination between us – particularly those mac using photographers out there.

    A couple of posts to follow that will pull up other articles on other sites – but well worth a read.

    Robert Cringely is an excellent write on all things technology (and other things). At the meeting, we discussed the security of the phone, how you protect the data etc. We didn’t discuss physical protection. Robert – in this piece does.

    Nothing to do about it – but the fact is the iPhone is now so valuable in other countries – they are being ripped, cleansed of all your data immediately and shipped off to the new buyer. Kind of makes our discussions moot!

    Another great blogger on both Apple and Tech is John Gruber. Some of you might have heard about his blog ‘Daring Fireball‘.

    One topic discussed on the night was a new app available in the App Store called Square. Essentially for $10 – you get an adapter that plugs into your iPhone and you are good to go with a built in Credit Card Reader. Needless to say – the ‘big boys’ have come out with guns a blazing about how Square just isn’t secure and how much better Verifone is.

    Read the Gruber comments here – but to get to the nub, Gruber comments that (some of the claims made by Verifone are “pure, unadulterated FUD.” – Gruber is good at calling it.

    By MAUS Administrator, ago

    Meeting Summary : March

    Date Line : March 16th.

    Topics covered :

    More details ? Want to know more ? EMail Me Now : jphilpin@me.com

     

    By MAUS Administrator, ago