LAPUG
We've talked so much about security and passwords and the importance of using a password manager rather than that little black book or the Post-It notes you stick near the computer (you're not really doing any of that, right?). Well, the time has come. This is a MUST ATTEND meeting to finally get your head around using a secure password management application. Khad Young from AgileBits will be leading a discussion on 1Password to show you not only why you would need a password manager but also all the cool things 1Password can do. Bring your friends to the meeting and let's spend some time finally prioritizing your computer securityReally.

The new iPad Pro is here and we'll be talking about the pros and cons of the new super-size tablet. Along with the Apple Pencil and Smart Keyboard, the iPad Pro becomes the most versatile and powerful tablet available. Can it replace a notebook for you? Well, come and see...

And, now that iOS 9 has been out for a while, we'll spend some time talking about some more subtle and hidden features that haven't been promoted too much by Apple. You'll walk away being able to take better advantage of that supercomputer in your pocket!
 
And, of course, we'll go over some other current events in the OS X world as well as review some cool Mac & iOS apps and leave some time for Q&A.
Direct download: LAPUG_Monthly_Meeting_December_2015.mp3
Category:User Group Meeting -- posted at: 2:28pm PDT

Lots of new stuff from Apple this month...we'll be showing and talking about the new Magic Keyboard, Magic Trackpad, new iMacs, and, of course, the new Apple TV. We'll demo the new Apple TV and we'll go over the setup process including the using App Store. If you don't yet have an Apple TV, come see what it's all about. If you have one and are considering upgrading, we'll let you know if it makes sense for you.
 
(edit: Apple TV setup was not successful at the meeting. That particular device was faulty and later replaced by Apple).

We'll also talk about some ways to help stop all those junk and robo calls you might get using a really cool and free service. We've got a few new iOS apps to discuss that you might like. And, we will spend more time digging deeper into some not so obvious and hidden features in iOS 9 and OS X El Capitan.

And, of course, we'll go over some other current events in the OS X world as well as review some cool Mac & iOS apps and leave some time for Q&A.
Direct download: LAPUG_Monthly_Meeting_20151109_1903.mp3
Category:User Group Meeting -- posted at: 9:21am PDT

LAPUG Monthly Meeting October 2015
OS X El Captian is here! For those of you keeping score, this is officially version 10.11 of the venerable Mac OS. It promises to be an exciting (free) successor to Yosemite and most reviewers have noted it's faster, cleaner and more refined.  Rather than going to a whole new name, Apple selected "El Capitan" to reflect that it's a better version of Yosemite. We'll spend our time discussing how to upgrade, whether your Mac is capable of running El Capitan, and what major features this new OS will bring.

Also, now that iOS 9 has been out for a while, we'll point out a few new features that escaped us back on launch day. You'll like these!  And, we'll show off some of the new features in iPhone 6S now that we have some on hand!
 
And, of course, we'll go over some other current events in the OS X world as well as review some cool Mac & iOS apps and leave some time for Q&A.
Direct download: 01_LAPUG_Montly_Meeting_October_2015.mp3
Category:User Group Meeting -- posted at: 8:20am PDT

The new iPhones are here...the new iPhones are here.  Well, if you were to look at them, you wouldn't see anything new -- except for the new Rose Gold color. But, as Apple has said, "the only thing that has changed is everything".  With the new, really cool 3D Touch, a new 12 MP camera, Live Photos, 4K video, the faster A9 processor, and more, the new iPhone 6S is a compelling upgrade. We'll talk about it as well as the new iOS 9 that going to be available September 16. That day will also bring Watch OS 2.0 and we'll talk about how what will be new and different on your wrist.

In addition, we'll cover the new iPad Pro (coming in November) and the new Apple TV (coming in October) with more detail on those when we'll have our hands on them.
Also, long-time LAPUG member Bruce Gerson is moving away. But since Bruce is quite active on our mailing list and distance doesn't mean anything in the online world, Bruce will still be "there". Bruce will be talking about running the new Windows 10 (which some of us do need) in a virtual machine (in VMware or Parallels) and will provide some tips about some of the best utilities that make using Windows just that less painful.
 
And, of course, we'll go over some other current events in the OS X world as well as review some cool Mac & iOS apps and leave some time for Q&A.
Direct download: LAPUG_Monthly_Meeting_September_2015.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 3:40pm PDT

Practical security changes you can make TONIGHT that will make you safer. Recommendations have changed for how to protect your data and we’ll go over the latest recommendations as well as the latest concerns for Mac and iOS with an emphasis on giving you control and clear ideas of what to do.

 

And, of course, we'll go over some other current events in the OS X world as well as review some cool Mac & iOS apps and leave some time for Q&A.

Direct download: LAPUG_Monthly_Meeting_August_2015.mp3
Category:User Group Meeting -- posted at: 9:14am PDT

LAPUG Monthly Meeting July 2015

Apple Music is here! Apple has made an about-face from over a decade ago when Steve Jobs said that people want to own their music. With Spotify, Pandora and other apps sharing their part of the streaming music market, Apple has now added an all-you-can-eat feature to the iTunes Music Store. We'll spend some time going over how it works and what's different than the competition. We'll also talk about how it compares to Apple's other music service, iTunes Match, and how they can work together.


We'll also go over some news including the public beta releases of OS X El Capitan and iOS 9 as well as the release of Microsoft Office 2016 for Office 365 users. And, a whole bunch more...

And, of course, we'll go over some other current events in the OS X world as well as review some cool Mac & iOS apps and leave some time for Q&A.
Direct download: LAPUG_Monthly_Meeting_July_2015.mp3
Category:User Group Meeting -- posted at: 9:05am PDT

WWDC! The annual Apple Worldwide Developer Conference is the week of June 8 and, luckily for us, we’re meeting the evening of first day. That means we’ll have a wrap up report of the keynote that will have taken place earlier that morning. Traditionally, this is the time of year Apple makes announcments about new versions of OS X, iOS and any new technologies they plan to introduce soon. Perhaps there will be a few hardware announcements, too. There have been a ton of rumors about what’s to come but we’ll only know after the keynote is over. Make sure to come to the meeting so we can let you know about all the exciting things that are in the pipeline.

Direct download: LAPUG_Monthly_Meeting_June_2015.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:53am PDT

The Apple Watch is real and it’s finally here! But, is it all it’s reported to be? We’ll have a few watches on hand to show and talk about. We’ll review what the Apple Watch is and, equally important, what it’s not. There are many features of the watch that make it an extension of an iPhone and we’ll review what those are. We’ll also talk about how popular apps from the App Store have added functionality to the Apple Watch to make it even more useful. Come on by and let’s enjoy some Watch time together.
Sorry, we won’t have a gold Edtion model to show.
 
 
And, of course, we'll go over some other current events in the OS X world as well as review some cool Mac & iOS apps and leave some time for Q&A.
Direct download: LAPUG_Monthly_Meeting_May_2015.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:48am PDT

RIP iPhoto & Aperture.  Apple has just release Yosemite 10.10.3 which not only includes the usual set of bug fixes and optimizations, it includes a brand new application, Photos.  Photos is the new application that replaces both iPhoto and Aperture. Although both of those applications will no longer be updated, they will continue to work for the foreseeable future.  We’ll review some of the features and requirements of Photos and we’ll discuss the consequence of moving to the new program. If you have questions, we urge you to not migrate your existing Library until you attend out meeting so you can ask them.

We’ll also talk about a few new utilities on the social apps scene that seem interesting and we’ll show a tool that will help you determine if some of those phishing (scam) email messages you get once in a while are real or not. 
 
And, of course, we'll go over some other current events in the OS X world as well as review some cool Mac & iOS apps and leave some time for Q&A.
Direct download: LAPUG_Monthly_Meeting_April_2015.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:07am PDT

Apple is planning an announcement from Cupertino the morning of our meeting. Being a Monday, it is a rare occurrence for us to discuss announcements just made rather than speculate on a presentation that might happen the next day or later in the week. We’ll have a full rundown on what Apple talks about!
 
Yosemite is pretty solid since it came out in the fall and it brings with it lots of new and hidden features. We’ve talked about the main “tentpole” features of Yosemite, but now we’ve had some to time to dig around and there are an amazing amount of “little things” that are pretty cool and can make a big difference in how you use the OS. We’ll spend some time going over a lot of hidden gems.
Direct download: LAPUG_Monthly_Meeting_March_2015.mp3
Category:User Group Meeting -- posted at: 11:57am PDT

In 2014, Apple announced a few new products coming in early 2015. Well, it’s now early 2015 and these products are getting closer to being released. The Apple Watch is reportedly in production and the upcoming Photos application for OS X (replacing iPhoto and Aperture) hsa been reported to be in the next update to Yosemite.  We’ll talk about these upcoming releases and show you what we know (including some videos of Photos).

Since there are a lot of utilties to help you clean up your iPhoto library, we’ll talk about the things you can do to prepare your library to make the transition a little easier. 

We’ll also talk about some tools you can use on the Mac to access and extract data from your iOS devices that will allow to you get at data you normally won’t be able to access with Apple’s tools. Sometimes, this will be the quickest or only way to get at this data. This will be very handy part of our meeting.

And, of course, we'll go over some other current events in the OS X world as well as review some cool Mac & iOS apps and leave some time for Q&A.
Direct download: LAPUG_Monthly_Meeting_Feb_2015.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:53pm PDT

January is CES month! Ben, Phil and other LAPUG members that attended will review what was shown in the iLounge area as well as the coming trends in consumer electronics for 2015. 

We’ll also focus on Sandvox. This is a really easy to use web site development tool. We’ll show you how to create a web site and how to upload it to a web server. We’ll also how you how easy it is to post updates and we’ll do it live with our own LAPUG web site.

And one more thing….Are you a slow typist? Are you tired of entering appointments and reminders in your iPhone with the keyboard? Want to know if you need an umbrella this weekend? Want to know how the Lakers or Clippers are doing? Want to know how Apple stock is doing? What about making a restaurant reservation for tonight? All that stuff can easily be done on the iPhone and iPad. But, you’ve got a personal assistant to do that for you and all you need to do is ask. One of Apple’s most innovative features in iOS is also one of the most underused. This month, we’ll spend some time going over all the ways you can use Siri to enhance your iOS experience and make your life a little easier. You already carry around your personal assistant. Why not talk to it once in a while and have it do things for you?
 
And, of course, we'll go over some other current events in the OS X world as well as review some cool Mac & iOS apps and leave some time for Q&A.
Direct download: LAPUG_Monthly_Meeting_Jan_2015.mp3
Category:User Group Meeting -- posted at: 10:06am PDT

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