Easy Wireless at Home

1. Get an Apple AirPort Express (or an Apple Airport Extreme Base Station if you don’t have a router and want easy router functions and/or a shared network hard drive)
2. Plug it into
   • your cable/DSL modem, router, switch, or hub
   • your USB printer (if desired)
   • your stereo (if desired)
3. Set your laptop location to “Automatic,” select the Network (“Apple Network XXXXXX”) and you’re on-line.
4. (See graphics for sample network setup with a router and without).

Securing the Station and/or Sharing the Printer with Wired Computers

See screenshots at .Mac or download zip file of screenshots. The first seven show security setup. The last two show how to share the printer wth wired computers.

RSS Feeds

1. The basics — will be watched and reviewed in session
2. Bloglines — for rss-reading within a web browser
3. Vienna — for rss-reading in a stand-alone program

Some rss feeds:

1. Maine Musings
2. New Little Prince
3. Veritas
4. Garden Rant
5. Gulf of Maine Books
6. Custom Google News Feed
• Gary Taubes, e.g.
7. Laptop Maine (this site!)
8. WebTeam
9. New York Times
• Science, e.g.
10. Bloglines Top 1000
11. Delicious Popular

Addenda

Google Reader

Google’s very slick web-based online rss reader.

NetNewsWire

Industrial-strength stand-alone rss feeder (will not install without admin password). $29.95

School Basics

1. Schoolmaster on a Mac
2. Network Novell share access
3. Easy Grade Pro on a Mac, backed-up on the network
4. Using WebMail on Safari

YouTube, KeepVid, iSquint

1. downloading YouTube videos using KeepVid
2. downloading iSquint to convert flv to Quicktime
3. installing iSquint — and generally how to install software
4. playing video using FrontRow — access with Command-esc or remote

Addenda

VLC

VLC is an open source video player that will play almost any video format, including flv from YouTube

Handbrake

Handbrake is an open source video converter, used mostly to convert DVDs to MPEG-4 for use on computers and iPods.

BoingBoing

The most popular blog in the world, as ranked by Technorati.com.

(repeat of Session 1)

The Machine Itself

1. NO FEAR (no viruses, no spyware, no malware, no defrag-need…)
2. sleep
3. shutting down/rebooting (maybe once a week)
4. battery (maybe 300 full cycles)

System Preferences…

1. using System Preferences (search)
2. speeding up the trackpad
3. configuring right-click

The Finder, Part 1

1. reining in Live Dictionary
2. overview of hard drive structure
3. folder views
4. Documents folder
5. putting folders in the Dock
6. putting folders in the sidebar 

Safari, Part 1

1. setting up Safari preferences
2. show Status Bar
3. using tabs in Safari
4. using Google in Safari
5. command-click in Safari
6. keyboard shortcuts in Safari

Addenda

Show Desktop

Show Desktop is a small OS X application that will hide all applications and shows the desktop when clicked. It can run in the menu bar or the dock depending on your preference — but the menu bar makes the most sense.

Lifehacker

The sixth most popular blog in the world, as ranked by Technorati.com. Are you ready for the first-most-popular? I don’t think so…

The Machine Itself

1. NO FEAR (no viruses, no spyware, no malware, no defrag-need…)
2. sleep
3. shutting down/rebooting (maybe once a week)
4. battery (maybe 300 full cycles)

System Preferences…

1. using System Preferences (search)
2. speeding up the trackpad
3. configuring right-click

The Finder, Part 1

1. reining in Live Dictionary
2. overview of hard drive structure
3. folder views
4. Documents folder
5. putting folders in the Dock
6. putting folders in the sidebar 

Safari, Part 1

1. setting up Safari preferences
2. show Status Bar
3. using tabs in Safari
4. using Google in Safari
5. command-click in Safari
6. keyboard shortcuts in Safari

Addenda

Show Desktop

Show Desktop is a small OS X application that will hide all applications and shows the desktop when clicked. It can run in the menu bar or the dock depending on your preference — but the menu bar makes the most sense.

Lifehacker

The sixth most popular blog in the world, as ranked by Technorati.com. Are you ready for the first-most-popular? I don’t think so…

I’d like to try to offer informal sessions on Monday afternoons for a while to see if I can help people get comfortable with their new laptops. I’ll present Mac-centric tips, mostly, with some random stuff thrown in as seems fit. I don’t have much time for this, and neither do you, so here’s what I’m proposing:

On Mondays (“MacMonday”), bring your laptops to room 110 from 2:30 – 3:00 pm and I’ll present some tips. About halfway through, we’d leave my agenda behind and see what we can do with questions. At 3:00 we’ll be done.

I’m concerned that doing this will open me up to more questions outside of this little half hour window on Monday. So I’d like to say that coming to a MacMonday session empowers you to help others with the topics that I’ve presented. I’ll post a list of attendees in a comment after each session of this blog, and folks who missed it can look and find a name of someone they’d like to ask for a review.

We’ll also use the comment function of the blog for questions/topics you’d like to see addressed — it will reduce redundancy if you look to see if someone else has already asked…