The February monthly meeting of Natmac will take place on February 2,  2011, commencing at 7:00 p.m. at Holy Cross Hospital.

Believe it or not another month has flown by and we are ready to have our second Natmac meeting of the new year. Hopefully we will have a good turnout to listen to Dean explain all about our computers of choice and the doings in Cupertino. 

The Mini Bluetooth Keyboards I mentioned last month have arrived. They work with the iPad and iPhone (and I think iPod touches). Since we have many users of these devices I think we will give away all four of the keyboards I ordered. So, this month?s list of 15 doorprizes is as follows:

4 Mini Bluetooth Keyboards

4 bundles of 25 DVD Blanks 

1 Lenovo Notebook Stand

1 8GB Flash drive

4 reams of copy paper

1 Red Apple tee shirt (they?re almost gone!!!)

The usual rules will apply; each paid membership will receive one raffle ticket but additional tickets can be purchased at the cost of $1 or 6/$5. Only one prize per membership still applies.

After swapping my MacBook for an iPad I have decided the MacBook Air is more to my liking. So, I am offering my 32 GB iPad wifi with an Apple case for sale for $500. Also, if anyone is in the market for a high end 13? MacBook Pro one is available at the Apple employee?s price of 25% off the $1495 price. This is the 2.66GHz model. 

I hope you all know that I am happy to list items you have for sale in the monthly Natmac Reminder. Just send the details to me at least a week prior to the meeting date.

See you on the 2nd,

 

Pete

 

Here is this month?s reading assignment:

 

7 Marketing Strategies to Learn from Apple

The title of this article on KISSmetrics marketing blog is actually 7 Key Strategies That You Must Learn From Apple's Marketing. They mention a couple that I hadn't heard mentioned before.

 

http://www.ugnn.com/2011/01/7-marketing-strategies-to-learn-from-apple/

 

Checkout Gray Market Electronics

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram's Dave Lieber, the Watchdog columnist this week ran a mention of a follow-up to a column he had done last month. Last month's column dealt electronics such as cameras that cost less but don't come with a U.S. warranty. Gray market vendors can really cause problems with warranty and upgrade possibilities. My second Apple computer, an Apple //e I had purchased from a gray market store in Honolulu.

When they upgraded the graphics to double hi-res, the authorized dealer refused to upgrade me because I hadn't purchased it from an authorized dealer. Of course at that time I hadn't even heard of a gray marketeer.

 

http://www.ugnn.com/2011/01/checkout-gray-market-electronics/

 

Solitaire Top Free App

MobilityWare has announced that Solitaire has been named one of the Top Free iPad Apps of the year by iTunes in their iTunes Rewind 2010 list. The list, published by Apple, showcases the top releases of 2010.

 

http://www.ugnn.com/2011/01/solitaire-top-free-app/

 

Your iPhone becomes the First Pinball Machine

International game development collective Vision Thing Software has announced ?Ballywoo ? The Game Sensation of 1932 , a free version of its popular iPhone and iPod touch game. Ballywoo recreates one of the first commercial, mass-produced pinball machines ever made. That machine launched the career of Ray Moloney's Bally Manufacturing Corporation.

 

http://ow.ly/3APKb

 

Multifunctional Calendar App

Multifunctional Calendar App AroundCal is now available in version 1.7 exclusively for the iPhone and iPod touch. With AroundCal, you can add photos, user definable lists, priority, tag, progress status, project or voice memo to your iPhone calendar events: AroundCal is automatically in sync with the iPhone Calendar App, MobileMe, and other sync services who sync the iPhone calendar. Also subscribed calendars will be shown.

 

http://www.ugnn.com/2011/01/multifunctional-calendar-app/

 

Helpful Hints: Growing old with Stickies

"I used Jim Dunleavy's article in my January User Group Newsletter because this is a seldom-used and free OS X goodie that most of us overlook...."  George Engel

 

http://ow.ly/3IBv0

 

PhotosMail 1.0 for iOS

Power App GmbH has introduced PhotosMail 1.0 for iOS, their app that provides an integrated tool for sending multiple photos as attachments to a single email.

 

http://www.ugnn.com/2011/01/photosmail-1-0-for-ios/

 

Macintosh How To

Here is a web site that is dedicated to how to do articles for the Mac. It is written by Wayne Connor. There is a page that has a list of articles that are categorized and linked to the article. The numbers next to the articles refer to the number of comments.

 

http://www.ugnn.com/2011/01/macintosh-how-to/

 

Mac Explorer

This is a Mac blog that is new to me. They have a section for Tips & Tricks, one called Wallpapers and another one called "The Top List."

 

http://www.ugnn.com/2011/01/mac-explorer/

 

Google My Maps iPhone App

Since its November release, The Cartographer, featuring antique cartography styling, custom Google My Maps viewing and editing, and offline map features, has been highly successful.

 

http://www.ugnn.com/2011/01/google-my-maps-iphone-app/

 

 Quotes: Steve Jobs says:

 A lot of companies have chosen to downsize, and maybe that was the right thing for them. We chose a different path. Our belief was that if we kept putting great products in front  of customers, they would continue to open their wallets.

 

Photo of the month:

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