MacValley Users Group: Meetings
All MacValley meetings are open to anyone interested in Apple products. We welcome all levels, from beginners to knowledgeable users. Come and participate fully at any and all of our meetings and classes.
General Meetings
MacValley's General Meetings are held on the first Wednesday of the month (except for a break in January) from 7:30 pm to 10:00 pm at Wilkinson Center, 8956 Van Alden, Northridge, CA.
Each month we present the latest and the greatest for Apple products. We have frequent guest speakers as well as knowledgeable MacValley presenters.
Upcoming General Meetings
Wednesday February 1st, 2012
Double Feature!!
Arnold Woodworth will tell us about the exciting new stuff he saw at MacWorld in San Francisco.
And Tom Briant (Editor of the MacValley Voice) will present "Cleaning House for 2012 - Five tips for getting your Mac to run smoothly".
Past General Meetings
December 7th, 2011 - Tom Briant, Editor of the MacValley Voice, presented quick and easy tips for holidayizing (yes, it's a word!) your Mac with the right desktop pictures, desktop icons, alert sounds, and even the appropriate e-mail template to get you you ready for the holidays.
The presentation also featured Hanukkah music by our own Jeff Janning, as well as Christmas music.
(Special thanks to Ken Gruberman, Fran Cohan, Jeff Janning, and Elena-Beth Kaye)
November 2nd, 2011 -
Arnold Woodworth presented 'Pages', Apple's powerful word processing app. For the almost negligible price of $19.99, you get a full-featured writing app that includes a contextual format bar where you can format your text and adjust images. You can also use the bar to choose your fonts, change text size and color, adjust your line spacing and your paragraph alignment, check your spelling, and proofread your document. It takes a few clicks to add headers, footers, footnotes, and bookmarks.
October 5th, 2011 -
Ken Gruberman presented "Sibelius", one of the best applications for composing, arranging and publishing music. This was an entertaining evening for all, and it was especially great for people who enjoy music. Ken's showmanship and his fantastic sense of humor make him one of MacValley's alltime favorites!
September 7th, 2011 - Arnold Woodworth presented "Why You Want Mac OS-X Lion"
Members came to the MacValley general meeting to learn the best new features of Mac OS-X Lion.
August 3rd, 2011 - Joey Rule presented "Six Tips for Using iPhoto 11: Turn your Summer Vacation Pix into Great Photos". Joey is director of sales and training for MacTalk (mactalk.com) and he also leads classes and gives presentations.
July 6th, 2011 - Tom Briant, Editor of the Voice, presented "How to prepare for the upheaval that Mac OS "Lion" will bring into our lives". How can we still run old programs, how can we tell which ones to upgrade, and what can we substitute for the ones that will fail? And will you need to buy a whole new Mac?
June 1st, 2011 - Elena-Beth Kaye presented
Microsoft Office 2011 with some emphasis on Microsoft Word.
May 4th, 2011 - Arnold Woodworth presented
More Fun, Cool and Useful Ways You Can Customize Your Mac
such as Energy Saver, Finder options, keyboard, mouse, etc.
April 6th, 2011 - Arnold Woodworth presented
Fun, Cool and Useful Ways You Can Customize Your Mac
Ways to customize your toolbar, your dock, and your keyboard. Not to mention your mouse. Plus, how you can use your own photos to individualize your Desktop and Screen Saver. And so much more.
March 2nd, 2011 - Tom Briant presented:
More than Buying and Listening to Music and Movies:
Getting Good Podcasts for FREE and Keeping Your iTunes Library Running Smooth`
February 2nd, 2011 - Arnold Woodworth gave an encore presentation: "Security for Your Mac".
December 1st, 2010 - Ken Gruberman hosted our December General Meeting and presented HALLMARK STUDIO FOR MACINTOSH, which you can use to put together your very own uniquely customized cards and print them out to send to family and friends. Or email them to everybody on your list.
And if you enjoy sending out yearly calenders to family and friends, you have unlimited options for designing your own special calenders. Best of all, you can import your own photos from iphoto and isight cameras.
November 3rd, 2010 - Elena-Beth Kaye presented "Stuff you can do with your iPad". Such as, you can actually use iBooks to highlight lines in a book that you're reading on iPad. You can even make notes in the margins. How cool is that? And if you enjoy reading classics, you can access thousands of books for absolutely no cost! Yes, the iPad is a fabulous eBook reader, but that's only the very tiniest part of what you can do with this multimedia miracle. You can create works of art, play games, display maps and so much more.
October 6th, 2010 - Ken Gruberman, MacValley's Emmy winning, Grammy winning, long-time MacValley EmCee, former Voice Editor, and so much more, emceed MacValley's October meeting. Ken's presenter was none other than Jim Rea, President of ProVue Software, and the man who came up with Panorama.
Jim Rea is a true star in the world of the Mac, and he and Panorama have been around for a long, long time. How good is Panorama? Ken Gruberman says, "Panorama runs rings around FileMaker Pro." And Adam Engst chose Panorama as his 'Pick of the Week' on Leo LaPorte's MacBreak Weekly.
September 1st, 2010 - Arnold Woodworth presented "8 Ways You Can Keep Your Computer and Your Online Accounts Secure".
August 4th, 2010 - Apple-certified consultant and MacValley Elena-Beth Kaye presented "Use iPhoto to Transform Your Vacation Snapshots into Absolutely Great Photos". And she gave a bonus preview of her upcoming November iPad presentation by showing a taste of iOS4 on the iPhone, along with some very cool gadgets! To find Elena-Beth's listing on the Apple website go to: http://consultants.apple.com/
July 7th, 2010 - Arnold Woodworth presented the intriguing and colorful mindmapping program, 'NovaMind Express'. Using floating topics, colorful images, and eye-catching graphics, NovaMind helps you create a stunning visual map of your creative ideas. Helpful, useful, and fun to play around with, NovaMind is an easy and revolutionary way to organize all your overflowing ideas and clear your mind.
June 2nd, 2010 - Tom Briant (MacValley Board member and editor of the MacValley Voice) presented iTunes. Tom presented the basics of how to use iTunes, how to download music from the iTunes Store, and how to adjust the Equalizer to get the best sound from iTunes. He also showed how to upload music from CD's to iTunes, and how to download your music from iTunes to your iPod. And best of all, Tom showed how to download music from iTunesinto your iPod.
May 5th, 2010 - Dave Stillman from Strider Software presented TypeStyler. TypeStyler is used for adding artistic effects to text. Imagine you are writing the words for something fancy (like a logo or a brochure or a business card) and you don't want your words to have that ordinary ink on paper look. Maybe you want words that look like they're made of stone or wood or glass or metal. Maybe you want to make your own calligraphy. TypeStyler lets you do all these things with words, and much more. With TypeStyler, it's easy to make the words you write look really fancy. And once you have your fancy looking words, you can put them into just about any kind of document.
April 7th, 2010 - Jay Gonzales of MacSpeech presented MacSpeech Dictate & MacSpeech Scribe - speech recognition software for the Mac. Now you can write by speaking instead of typing on your keyboard. Which is great for people who haven't mastered typing. MacSpeech Dictate also allows you to make your Mac do things by speaking commands instead of using the mouse. It takes only a few minutes to train Dictate or Scribe to understand your voice. There are several different versions of Dictate and Scribe: Standard, International, Medical and Legal.
After trying for years to get MacSpeech to a MacValley meeting, some of the most exciting products ever made for the Mac were presented at our general meeting.
March 3rd, 2010 -
The March presentation was "How to join the church of BUD -- Back-Up Daily!"
The subject was how to back up everything on your Mac, including your precious photos, your writing, and your personal records.
Our presenter was Donald Carlile of Quandir Solutions. Since 1984, Don has worked with people at all levels of Mac mastery, from beginners and basic users, right on up to working with a major aerospace company. He is deeply committed to giving support to both individual users and home office workers. Whether you are a user at a very basic level, or a more advanced user, Donald Carlisle's presentation is chock-full of helpful and timely information that will help you keep all your Mac info safely backed up -- every single day.
Find out more about Don Carlisle on www.quandir.com.
February 3rd, 2010 -
The presenter was Justin Bradshaw, a member of the Apple Consultants Network (ACN). He presented a "Freebie Special". He showed us a whole lot of information about how to use Gmail, Google Books, and Google Voice.
Justin Bradshaw is a MacCognoscenti who specializes in coaching Mac Users, guiding and advising Mac Users through the good, the great, and the unexpected events in your digital life. Find out more about Justin on www.maccog.com.
December 2nd, 2009 - MacValley's own Elena-Beth Kaye presented the latest and greatest iPhone G3S, with all its stunning new features.
Elena is a Certified Member of the Apple Consultants Network. She is also MacValley's Emcee. Elena-Beth runs her own referral-based business as a private Mac tutor and consultant, teaching Mac skills to everyone from celebrities to their grandmothers.
November 4th - Our November presenter was Rashantha De Silva, who presented the controversial Quo Computer. According to the Quo website, "QUO was created by Apple enthusiasts that live and breathe Mac OS X (TM)". According to De Silva, Quo isn't making Mac clones. Quo is selling systems that have the capability to install any operating system the customer wishes. Of course, this just happens to include Apple's Mac OS X. Says De Silva, "We want to sell affordable computers to customers that give them the flexibility to choose any operating system they want.
October 7th - Our October presenter was Apple Certified Consultant Ric Wilson. Ric will presented an Introduction to Snow Leopard.
Ric has been a member of the Apple Consultants Network for 5 years, following a 20-year career in the music industry. He first started working with computers while in Elementary School when one of his older brothers built a Heathkit computer. In college he bought an Amiga 1000 and after college his first Mac. Ric specializes in working with home users and small businesses through his Northridge-based company, Help4Mac.
September 2nd - Arnold Woodworth presented the latest "Tips and Tricks for your Mac". Shortcuts, keystrokes, and other things to make your life on the Mac easier and smoother and more efficient.
August 5th - Our August presenter was Drew Woerner, who presented 'GarageBand Basics'. Drew showed us how to use Garageband to create and record music, as well as how to record podcasts. He also demoed ways to create personal recordings that can be used in a variety of ways.
July 1st - Our July presentation was given by Jeff Stansfield. Jeff is an Apple Consultants Network Member, and he is President and Video Engineer of his company, Advantage Video Systems. His company provides solutions for post/production, corporate, and government markets. Recently, Jeff built a Mobile Editing System for Yahoo Music. And to top it all off, Jeff is now one of MacValley's newest members. Welcome Jeff!
June 3rd - The ever-popular Deb Shadovitz presented 'How to Individualize Your Mac.'
May 6, 2009 - Rick Thues the iMentor presented 'Your Mac is a Filing Cabinet'. .
April 1, 2009 - Deb Shadovitz presented MacHeads', a documentary on the history of the MacUser Movement from the early days of the Macintosh 128K, right up to today.
March 4, 2009 - Arnold Woodworth presented Turbo-Tax. Less sweating your income taxes, and - hopefully - a bigger return.
February 2009 - The Hilarious Reverend Dr. Bobby Newton presented ways you can manage that old Debbil Email! (Say Amen! Hallelujah! Praise Steve Jobs!)
January 2009 - As always, due to the post-holiday recovery period, as well as MacWorld San Francisco, there was no General Meeting in January.
December 2008 - A MacValley tradition! Lynn Lanning presented loads of fun and games including the 'MacValley 'Fun 'n' Games CD', featuring the best of the best games and fun stuff for 2008.
November 2008 - Anton Anderson presented Bento, Filemaker's new database with a revolutionary design. Bento is intuitive, easy to learn and easy to use and Anton shared his expertise and insights into one of Filemaker's latest and greatest new products, ever.
October 2008 - Chis Keller presented all you can do with MobileMe. Filled with facts and information on an often perplexing subject.
September 2008: - A presentation by MacValley Voice editor Tom Briant, featuring shareware you can find online for less that $25. Yes Virginia, there is great downloadable software out there that won't break your bank account.
August 2008 - One of our most enlightening meetings was Arnold Woodworth's presentation of 'Things You Can Do with Widgets'. Arnold got fanmail on his presentation of this fun and useful freebiie that comes pre-installed on Tiger and Leopard.
July 2008 - The amazing Deb Shadovitz. Deb has written books and articles on the Mac, and she heads up the exciting MacDay LA. Deb showed us how to organize our desktops for greater efficiency and ease of use.
MacValley Mac Class
Classes are held at the main branch of the Glendale Central Library, 222 E. Harvard St., Glendale, CA., near the Galleria and the Americana shopping centers. Classes are held on the first Saturday that follows the date of the General Meeting (except for a break in January).
Topics vary from month to month. The class lasts for 4 hours, so there is lots of time for Q & A. Beginners are especially welcome, along with any of you that have questions about your Apple products. Classes run from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm.
Upcoming Mac Classes
February 4th, 2010
Class will be held, from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm, at the main branch of the Glendale Central Library, 222 E. Harvard St., Glendale, CA., near the Galleria and the Americana shopping centers.
Beginners are especially welcome, along with any of you that have questions about your Mac.
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