Am I having a lucid dream?
Welcome to another edition of the Express. It's been an interesting few months in the Mac community! From the ramp-up and release of Tiger. Through the speed bumps across the hardware product line to various application updates. . . there is so much we users can sink our teeth into.
          I was glad to learn that Apple has bumped up speeds on all consumer models, including the G5 towers and the PowerBook, but I think the R&D folks left out the iBook line. I hope that gets addressed by the time of the back-to-school buying cycle in August.
           I've been doing so much work using the new iPhoto 5 that I forgot the many other imaging apps I own and use for various jobs. When I went to use iPhoto 4 on a machine at the school where I teach, I momentarily forgot the old v4 shortcuts. (One of my students looking over my shoulder thought I was lost for a moment. He asked, "Did you forget how to do something?”I was so used to my upgrades at home that I almost forgot the old v.4 apps.)
            A new application I've begun to work with is Apple’s Pages. I realize it’s still only a version 1 program and it’s going to be revised, but it still feels clunky to me. Perhaps you join me in lamenting the passing of Appleworks, which I still use in the course of my work. Apple could have upgraded it and removed the old Presenter tool, but decided instead on iWork. Not that Pages is so horrible. The templates are nice, and maybe they’ll add more. The new version of Keynote continues to be an outstanding program.

Decisions, decisions
I hope to make three important purchases this summer. One will be a new video camera using the Mini DV format. (The one I use now is a digital 8). The Second is a new digital still camera. I'm looking at a 5Mp or better with a very long lens and image stabilization.The Last item will be a new iPod(finally). But which one? A shuffle? A Mini? An iPod Photo? Now i'm confused.
           I also must consider a new portable; my clamshell iBook is nearing the grasp of death. A trip to Tekserve confirmed my hunch about Sir Graphite. He is now hanging at least three times a day, and although he was fine on vacation for downloading photos from my stable of cameras, he began to misbehave at the NFL Draft a few weeks back. I'm ready to send him to the naughty room for computers. 
          So I'm considering a compromise again. I could get an older iBook G4 from Small Dog Electronics or Powermax, or even save a little more and get a late model iBook G3. Back to purchase confusion again! (I had this dream where Steve Jobs comes to me and says “People who help run users groups are special, and I know you just can’t afford a new laptop right now, so why don’t you let me give you this 12” Powerbook. It even has an Airport card and a superdrive. . ." That’s when I woke up to go to the bathroom. Man! Only a dream! And he was about to give me a new iPod Photo and a new camera. Dreams like that can become an expensive reality.)

Express forward
The Express continues to evolve. Our staff is a small, dedicated crew of contributors, and we continue to ask for and add new staff as we can. Once again I want to thank all the people who make the Express a top-flight Users Group publication. We have some great articles this issue, including book and software reviews, a comprehensive piece by Eden Maxwell on maintaining harddrive integrity, and Marc Silverman's insight into his ingenious workaround. Next issue will include a review of Prosoft’s Drive Genius and some more hardware reviews.

Special Interest Groups
We are looking for a new location for the Legacy SIG. and we hope to start new SIGs, particularly one that will focus on iPhoto. If you are interested in an iPhoto SIG please e-mail me at (newsletter@metromac.org)
          Hoping you read us again soon. . .

          Bill

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Metropolitan New York Macintosh Alliance