LAPUG
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

OS X Yosemite has been out for a while and we’re discovering new things it can do every day. This is a great release and it promises to be the best version of OS X yet. Join us at our next meeting as we review not only some great new features in Yosemite but also some must-have Yosemite add-ons you can use to supercharge your Mac.  Bring your Yosemite questions and we’ll enjoy some Q&A to cap off a great 2014 in the Apple world.

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

Direct download: LAPUG_Monthly_Meeting_December_2014.mp3
Category:User Group Meeting -- posted at: 8:51am PDT

LAPUG Monthly Meeting November 2014
OS X Yosemite is here! Not only that, we’ve got an update to iOS 8 that enables the collaborative functions of Yosemite and iOS working together even more closely. New iMacs and Mac Minis have been released, too!  We’ll review all this news and we’ll spend the most of our meeting going over lots of new Yosemite features and how they work in conjuction with iOS.  This will be the Mac meeting of the season as we all dive into two new operating systems! Don’t miss this 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_November_2014.mp3
Category:User Group Meeting -- posted at: 9:10pm PDT

Wow! Lots of cool new stuff this month. iOS 8 has finally been released and we’ve got a pair of gorgeous new iPhones. Apple promises that Apple Pay will replace our credit cards and be the future of digital payments. Also, the mythical Apple Watch has been announced and we’ll talk about what features we can expect from it.  We’ll spend a good portion of our meeting going over a bunch of new features found in iOS 8 and how you can take advantage of them!

 

We'll also talk about why some graphics and images on screen don’t always print out with the same colors. Color calibration is essential to make sure that what you see is REALLY what you get. Our hero, Garry Margolis, will give us an overview of color calibration and explain a few ways you make sure you get the best possible colors out your computer.

 

 

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_Monthly_Meeting_October_2014.mp3
Category:User Group Meeting -- posted at: 1:19pm PDT