Come to One of Our Meetings Where to Find Us
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The offcial journal of the Wellington Macintosh Society Inc Volume 37.03 – March 2020 Come to one of our meetings Wellington Monday, Cancelled owing to Coronavirus Subject: TBA Kapiti Monday, Cancelled owing to Coronavirus Subject: TBA iPad Group* TBA Help Desk* Wellington - TBA 1.00pm - 4.00pm See page 2 for more details of meetings *Please register by emailing [email protected] Where to find us We will be guided by the rules and recommendations from the government, and aim to resume normal meetings as soon as possible. As at this writing, the alert level is 2, which includes measures limiting non-essential travel and recommending that high-risk people (including everyone over 70) remain at home. We do not think it is reasonable to hold group meetings under these conditions. As an alternative we will find a solution which allows us to run meetings with members joining in from home, via the Internet. INSIDE The President Writes p2 Automate Window Positioning With David’s Tech Guide p4 macOS p11 My Early Computer & WelMac Committee Contact Details p14 Recollections p8 CAPITAL APPLE – MARCH 2020 PAGE 1 The president writes ... of the Coronavirus and we need to be cognisant of what is being instigated on a national level and how this will effect us. David sent an email to all the committee in which he stated; “Today’s noon announcement from the PM is advising everyone over 70 to stay at home as much as possible. Given that many of our members are in that age Graeme Moffatt group, I think we now have no choice but to [email protected] officially cancel the next meetings, unless we can arrange an online meeting of some kind in their Hi folks. place. Wellington Cathedral have also confirmed that they are cancelling all bookings until further Those who were at the AGM last month and the notice, so we cannot hold Wellington meetings.” following Kapiti meeting at the beginning of this This is a wise move so we will investigate how month, will be aware that I have replaced David we can come up with an acceptable alternative and Empson as president of the society. This is not the let members know as soon as a decision is made first time I have been president as I was also before Monthly Presidents Report David took over from me eighteen years ago. Each month, in addition to commenting on what This will necessitate some changes to the way is happening in the Macintosh computer world in things are being conducted as regards the society our neighbourhood. I intend to give a report on and one of the first is in the manner that this what transpired at the previous committee meeting magazine is arranged and distributed. so that members will be able to see what is being I have been the editor for quite a number of done to advance their interests as far as this society years and also on different occasions as others have is concerned. The last such meeting, taking place a stepped in from time to time to give me a break. week or so ago, was the first since the AGM and as The biggest change will be that David will no there has been a somewhat major change for the longer be advising of meeting details and this and first time in eighteen years, we are having to other functions were decided at our first post AGM address what needs to be altered as an effect of committee meeting last Wednesday. this. David will still writing a reduced size article on One of the first things discussed was the what is happening on the larger Apple stage and housekeeping of things such as email addresses. As with any bits that our membership can gain from. David has been received emails to his The new person giving meeting updates has [email protected] account for many years, started this month and I will give a report on what we decided to continue with this in the meantime. is going on and forecast to happen with the society. All of the committee members already have a This month I have written a brief analysis of WelMac address of their first name followed by the where our society has come from and where we see WelMac domain with the exception of the it going in the future. There will be a lot of president, vice president, secretary, treasurer and discussion within the committee for a period of the editor of Capital Apple. Now that I am now time and the outcomes of this will be passed on to back as President, you can still email me at the members each month in my report. You can see [email protected]. this report on page 8. Other items that arose at the meeting were in Meeting Notice regard to our monthly newsletter, which will As everyone will be aware, there has been a increase in size and content starting with this one. major change to our daily lives with the outbreak The delegation of the management aspects of the committee with Martin McKendrick now taking on continued over page CAPITAL APPLE – MARCH 2020 PAGE 2 the responsibility of supper coordinator, and that late 1950s to the late 1970s with the adoption and does not mean that he will be doing it but tapping proliferation of digital computers and digital record others on the shoulder to have their turn. We are keeping that continues to the present day.Implicitly, not expecting members who regularly come to the term also refers to the sweeping changes meetings to undertake this for extended periods of brought about by digital computing and time but to take a turn on a monthly basis. communication technology during (and after) the We also discussed how we can further promote latter half of the 20th century. Analogous to the our society in order to, at a minimum, to maintain Agricultural Revolution and Industrial Revolution, our present membership level of around the eighty the Digital Revolution marked the beginning of the mark, and to look at growing this progressively Information Age. over the coming years. In this respect it was agreed I have been storing somewhere around fifty old that we would utilise the technology that we have computers dating from an Apple II from around come to love and rely on so will be investigating 1980 up until a range of the coloured G3 iMacs of how social media can be utilised to this end. We are 1998. David also has a few of the clubs computers now in the process of establishing a Facebook including an Apple II signed by Steve Wozniak, presence and this will be a group page where when he visited Wellington sometime around 1985. members will need to be granted access by the administrator so that only members will be able to post and see others posts. Over the last many years, some members of the committee, me included, have been collecting and storing Apple computers that have been donated by members and acquired from other sources. The aim has always been at some stage to investigate the best means as to how to be able to display these as many of them have now passed into the dustbin of history, and only those of us who were around when they were released and quite likely owned one, have any idea of their existence. Although we may not see and realise the fact, we are going through a monumental revolution that will be seen in the future as being every bit as significant as the Industrial Revolution This took place from about 1760 to sometime between 1820 and 1840 and this transition included going from hand production methods to machines, new chemical manufacturing and iron production It is costing me $180 a month to store these in a processes, the increasing use of steam power and secure lockup facility at Paraparaumu and although water power, the development of machine tools I do have some personal stuff stored as well, the and the rise of the mechanised factory system. The computers make up the bulk. The time has now Industrial Revolution also led to an unprecedented come when we need to establish what is going to be rise in the rate of population growth. done with our reasonably vast collection and the What the current revolution will come to termed establishment of a museum will be investigated is at this stage unknown but quite likely will be over the coming months. something as simple as the Computer Revolution or Digital Revolution and is defined by Wikipedia That’s all, folks! Graeme Moffatt as “The Digital Revolution”, this is the shift from mechanical and analogue electronic technology to To contact me, email [email protected], or you can ring me at home (027 660-3094) digital electronics which began anywhere from the CAPITAL APPLE – MARCH 2020 PAGE 3 The presidentDavid’s Tech Guide writes ... by David Empson [email protected] Air for CPU processing (despite a lower 04 976 9755 nominal clock speed). The higher spec model has a quad core i5 processor which can be nearly twice as fast for some tasks. The starting price has come down again. Until mid 2019, Apple was still selling the 2017 model (which was a minor tweak of the 2015 model) with Welcome to my new semi-regular column in old ports, 128 GB storage and a non-retina display, Capital Apple. Continuing with the pattern I’ve starting at $1649 (the 256 GB model was $1999).