First Bite of the Apple Newsletter

An occasional newsletter from Miraz Jordan, First Bite of the Apple <http://www.firstbite.co.nz><miraz@firstbite.co.nz>

Dear Friends, Clients and Colleagues,

I hope you've enjoyed a good holiday break and maybe we'll see some consistent sunshine soon ...

It's been a great pleasure to spend some quality time these last weeks with my partner and our cat and dog. I've also well and truly discovered that my cat's lightning-fast scalpel-sharp claws aren't easily avoided by a mere human.

NEW YEAR'S TIP:

It makes everything easier if you keep your computer files organised.

The start of the year is a good time to have a cleanup on your computer. Look at all your files and see if you can archive some by putting them in a separate folder. Maybe you have some documents which were really only of use in 2001. Make a folder for them and move them over. Set up a 2002 folder for this year's stuff.

CORRECTION

In my previous newsletter I mentioned: "a first 5-hour course at the Victoria University Continuing Education Centre ... about making websites accessible to people with disabilities."

Blame it on my end of year exhaustion, but I totally omitted to mention that this course was designed and run by AccEase, a firm specialising in accessible web design. I assisted Robyn Hunt, of AccEase, in presenting the course.

If you have an existing website and would like some specialist input on accessibility I can put you in touch with AccEase.

TIMETABLE

This year I'll be keeping Fridays for doing my accounts, catching up on emails and similar activities. That's a good day to ring me, if you're having trouble contacting me, though email remains the best way.

I also have trouble juggling the work I do from home - designing and maintaining websites, writing training courses etc - and visits to clients. I've decided to keep Mondays as a work-from-home day.

In about July I intend to take a week's holiday when I'll be out of Wellington, and I hope out of the country.

"Office hours" for phonecalls are between 9 am and 7 pm, Monday to Friday.

MAC NEWS

In early January this year Apple made two particularly interesting announcements.

There's a new iMac now, quite radically different from previous iMacs and in fact from any other computer I know of. Slightly resembling a desk lamp it has a rounded base which contains the CPU and other vital stuff, an arm, and a flat screen at the end of the arm. It might sound a little silly from that description but it looks to be a beautifully designed and very powerful machine. If you buy one it will come set to run OS X.

<http://www.apple.com/imac>

OS X is Apple's newest Operating System (OS) and it has some very significant differences from previous OSes. Any new Mac you buy from now on will be running this OS. As you upgrade software you might find you need to run OS X to handle it (for example, the latest version of MS Office needs OS X).

If you're a Mac user (some who receive this newsletter aren't) then you *will* eventually need training and help with OS X. Luckily I have an 800 page manual and a new iBook to help me learn about it and as soon as I'm up-to-speed I'll be able to offer training, advice and support. You can read a log of my learnings at

<http://mactips.info/x>

See <http://www.firstbite.co.nz/mactips/21to40.html#tip38> for fuller information on the new iMac and OS X.

Oh, and non-Mac users: this OS is based on Unix, with a Mac interface. A large number of previously non-Mac users are switching over. It's worth looking into ...

SERVICES This year I'm offering training, advice and support, with an emphasis on Macintosh and Internet. I also offer website design and website advice. Websites I design use the most modern techniques of XHTML and CSS for fast and accessible sites which will carry forward well into the future.

New areas I can help with include: OS X, making movies with iMovie, digital photography, using Apple's iTools service for backups, sharing photos and more.

LEARNING

I'm aiming to learn (more about) heaps of things this year. On my list I have: OS X, Photoshop and ImageReady, iMovie and Quicktime, Perl, MySQL, MoneyWorks (my accounts package), Cascading Style Sheets, Applescript.

WELMAC

The Wellington Macintosh Society is a non-profit organisation which supports users of Macintosh computers. For $40 per year it offers monthly meetings, newsletters, advice and a dynamic website. Mac users should consider joining. <http://www.welmac.org.nz/>

REFERENCE

For everything relating to my services see my official website at: <http://www.firstbite.co.nz>

My personal and experimental website is at: <http://miraz.info>

Coming soon, the MacTips website: <http://mactips.info>

QUOTE

Knowledge is one of the scarcest of all resources in any economy, and the insight distilled from knowledge is scarcer still. -- Thomas Sowell, p. 63, _Basic Economics, A Citizen's Guide to the Economy_

-- X-ing, A journey from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X: <http://mactips.info/x/>

Aiming to make websites work better for people - and people work better with websites.