OxMUG meeting 12 February 2008

What’s new / presentation software

Nuclear Physics Lab, Keble Road, Oxford

News

Mini-CDs are a bad ides
Following a question on email, we came to the conclusion: don’t put mini-CDs (often free with packets of cereal) anywhere near slot-loading CD drives, like the ones built into iMacs and laptops these days. It will be nearly impossible, and almost certainly expensive to get them out again.

10.5.2 released
Apple has released Mac OS X 10.5.2, which includes a broad range of enhancements including:

• Updates Stacks with a List view option, a Folder view option, and an updated background for Grid view.
• "Improvement of AirPort connection reliability and stability" 802.1X improvements
• Resolving kernel panics related to AirPort.
• Adding support for more third-party routers to "Back to My Mac"
• Improved performance of certain Apple Dashboard widgets.
• Addresses an issue in which Finder could unexpectedly quit when displaying folder contents in Column view.
• Addresses a hanging issue that may occur when connecting to an AFP network volume.
• Addresses issues with Safari reliably resolving certain domains.
• Adds a menu bar option for accessing Time Machine features (the menu extra can be enabled in Time Machine preferences).
• Improves backup reliability when computer name contains slash or non-ASCII characters.
• "Improves general stability when running third-party applications."
• Adds RAW image support for several cameras, as detailed in this article.

How to get it
The new release is available through Software Update or via the following standalone files:

Mac OS X 10.5.2 Combo Update [343MB]

Mac OS X Server 10.5.2 Combo Update [382MB]

Customise stacks
New options for Stacks—to see them, simply Cmd+click on a Stack. Under "Display as" you can choose "Folder" instead to see the folder icon for easy visual identification. Instead of your Mac deciding how the Stack should be viewed (as a grid or list), you can choose under "Display as."

Translucent menu bar – or not …
Just in case you can't find where the new setting is to change the translucent setting in 10.5.2, it's in System Preferences > Desktop & Screen Saver and uncheck "Translucent Menu Bar".

Known issues
Rumor is that some conflicts with Adobe CS2 and CS3 apps have been fixed.

FontExplorer conflicts nastily with 10.5.2. Update already out – can be installed through ‘check for updates’

Airport / wifi problems with some devices

Bluetooth problems with some devices

Problems with some mice / keyboards / trackpads

Other news
Aperture is updated (and requires 10.5.2)

There are also updates to the iLife apps

Topic 1: A quick introduction to the Finder by Peter Tucker

Topic 2: Presentation software by Paul Heritage-Redpath

An overview of the various presentation apps out there, including:

Microsoft PowerPoint

Apple’s own Keynote (for more on this, see the May meeting)

NeoOffice Impress (third party long-lost-twin of Microsoft Office)

Topic 3: Entourage 2008 – what’s new? By Peter Tucker

A quick spin around the new version of Microsoft Entourage. Extremely cheap for home / student users, and written to run natively on Intel computers.