This week Jim Weiher gave a fascinating presentation titled "A Brief History of Computing." This included considerable details on Apple's role.

Download this week's handout from the Downloads Section. The handout includes thumbnails of the presentation slides, plus a computer history timeline.

This week we put Mac productivity aside and looked at fun "Time Wasters and Eye Candy" on the Mac!

Our featured product this week is the freeware program Fish - one of the best time-wasters for all who love aquariums or otherwise love Macintosh graphics. It may not run well on anything older than a G4 or better. Leopard compatibility unknown.

We also looked at some other fun items: the screen savers Marine Aquarium and Fenetres Volantes. Wallsaver lets you run your screen savers as your desktop wallpaper -- guaranteed to make you sea-sick while you work! Eyeballs and BigFoot ... you gotta see it to believe it! Apple's own PhotoBooth is truly a fun app to use with children, in particular. It comes bundled with all Macs that have an iSight camera. FunBooth is a hilarious variant of PhotoBooth, and VoiceCandy which is the PhotoBooth for your microphone! We rounded things out with BioQuotes - a little database of 12,000 quotes from 5000 authors.

Not on the demo list, we also talked about iGlasses by Ecamm Network, which adjusts your iSight video settings from within iChat, Skype, PhotoBooth, and more.

Download this week's handout from the Downloads Section.

No class today! See you next week.

This week, Patrick Burke presents and demonstrates iChat - Apple's video chat program bundled with every new Macintosh purchase.

Patrick is making his PowerPoint presentation available, and you can obtain it by visiting the downloads page.

This week, Patrick Burke presents the free Internet telephony application called Skype. Skype allows you to call - for free - other skype users worldwide over the internet. This works just like a landline telephone except it all happens through your computer and over the internet. And, you can do live video chats as well!

Patrick is making his PowerPoint presentation available, and you can obtain it by visiting the downloads page.

This week we look at "Automation on the Mac."

Our featured product this week is Hazel by Noodlesoft. If you like to keep files and folders organized and your desktop clean, then Hazel is for you. You set Hazel (a System Preferences Pane) to watch folders of your choice for any activity - such as files showing up from downloads. Hazel can perform any number of organizing functions in the background by moving the files for you wherever you wish them to be. Hazel does much, much more - all in the name of keeping things tidy and organized for you.

We also spent some time talking about and demonstrating how you can use powerful automation features built right in the OSX operating system --- such as working with Smart Folders, Apple Mail Rules, and Automator. With Automator, you can actually create little programs called "Workflows" that can perform any number of automated actions for you on your Mac--- actions that can control other applications, all in an effort to automate and make your life stress free!! All done in a simple to understand and visual interface --- no knowledge of programming required, because Automator is programming for the typical Mac user!

We also looked briefly at a free Automator-like program called Proxi which also helps you automate operations on your Mac in a very visual and intuitive way ... but has other features that Automator doesn't have.

Additional automation utilities were given Honorable Mention, and you can get more information on all of this week's featured applications by downloading this week's handout from the Downloads Section.

This week we look at "Music and Audio on the Mac."

Our featured product this week is Apple's own GarageBand '08. This is part of the iLife suite of applications and comes on every new Mac. This is a powerful music composition and audio editing tool. With Magic GarageBand, new to GarageBand '08, you can have tons of fun creating your own instrument mix of popular music ... and, you don't even have to be a musician!

We also spent some time in iTunes ... Apple's most ubiquitous cross-platform application that manages your music, videos, podcasts, iPod tunes and more. We demonstrated how iTunes can very easily access tons of rich radio content on the internet - all free! We also discussed Podcasts and how to easily download and listen to them through iTunes and on your iPod.

Additional programs we looked at Audio Hijack for recording any audio coming through any program on your Mac, and Fission - another audio editing program. Both are from Rogue Amoeba. Rogue Amoeba also recently released a new program called RadioShift which allows you to time-shift record internet audio programs, similar in fashion to the VCR but for internet radio.

You can download this week's handout from the Downloads Section.

This week we look at "Easy Web Page Creation On the Mac."

We start out with a little discussion on WHAT a website is, and how your browser works to get all the rich information to you that is available on the Internet. Are you interested in securing your own DOMAIN NAME? I recommend (and use) GoDaddy.com as a great and inexpensive place to purchase your domain names, manage them, and even host your own website.

Our featured web page creation tool is iWeb -- part of the iLife suite of software that comes with every new Mac. It is an extremely easy yet powerful tool that lets you quickly create beautiful websites -- all in Apple's inimitable fashion! It works hand-in-hand with the the other iLife apps, like iPhoto and iMovie and GarageBand to let you upload multimedia to your websites. You can use your .Mac Services account for fast and seamless publishing to the web, or use your own website hosted elsewhere.

The second program we look at is RapidWeaver by RealMac Software. Like iWeb, RapidWeaver is a "What You See Is What You Get" web page creation tool, but offers other features and somewhat more flexibility. This is the software package I used to create the A.L.L. websites -- ImageMedic.com and this site: ALLMUG.org.

You can download this week's handout from the Downloads Section.

The topic this week was "What do Cooking, Banking and Mapmaking Have in Common?" We demoed 5 applications, and our feature software presentation was the award-winning recipe manager, MacGourmet. We also spent time on mapping software Meander and Google Earth. Finally, we rounded out the class by mentioning a couple great personal finances applications, iBank and Debt Quencher.

You can download the list from the Downloads Section.

The topic this week was "Security and Utilities." We demoed 10 applications, and our feature software presentation was the secure password management utility 1Password by Agile Web Solutions. This prize-winning and powerful security application integrates with the Mac's highly touted security features. Use 1Password to securely configure and manage your passwords and other personal data you might have that requires the security of encryption.

Additional software was demonstrated. You can download the list from the Downloads Section.

The topic this week was "Organizing Your Life on the Mac." We demoed 9 applications, and our feature software presentation was NoteBook by Circus Ponies. This is a an extremely powerful and useful application built around a notebook metaphor. If you collect information for your projects or research, give this a try! It's one of the Mac's star productivity applications, and highly affordable at $29 (education discount).

Additional software was demonstrated. You can download the list from the Downloads Section.

This week we concentrated on software demos in the areas of Desktop Publishing and Graphics. Our feature software presentation was Comic Life by Plasq software. This is a fun program that allows you to quickly and easily create comic-like graphical stories using your photographs or artwork. It can be used in business and education as well as for personal fun to share with family and friends. Comic Life is available as a trial version with all new Macs.

Additional software was demonstrated. You can download the list from the Downloads Section.

Our first class of this new course offered at the Academy opened with about 40 enthusiastic and curious students! The topic for this first class was Digital Photography Utilities. You can download the list of software that was demonstrated from the Downloads Section.