What You Missed - December 23, 2020
Ken was setting up the meeting wearing his special “So Tacky I Twinkle” sweater with flashing lights answering Zoom questions as members joined the meeting. Zoom had been update and Ken was trying to find out where the“Raise your hand” button had been moved to in both the iOS and Mac versions. Ken was excited as he was getting his new M1 MacBook Pro on Christmas Eve — with Big Sur on it so he can check it out. He isn’t ready to upgrade to Big Sur on his mission critical computer yet. Ken welcomed us all to the Christmas Eve Eve general meeting. He showed a couple of cartoons. One had the reindeer hanging off the edge of a roof while Santa sat in the sleigh texting — with the reindeer commenting “Someone should talk to him about his texting.”
After volunteer and member announcements, Al Trivett (who had a great holiday backdrop complete with the MacNexus Logo) was up for news and rumors. Al had some technical difficulties trying to share his screen, so Ken stepped in handling tech questions as Al worked to solve the problem. Ken showed how to do a backdrop in Zoom (Ed. Note: Rather than do a lengthy explanation here, go to https://www.tomsguide.com/how-to/how-to-change-your-zoom-background for both macOS and iOS instructions.)
A member had recently upgraded their iPhone 11 Max to iOS 14 and they noted that they could no longer edit a photo that was outside the frame. As Pete and Ken researched, it was noted that you can go to the Camera app and click on the ˆ at the top of the screen to see more options — one of which is changing the screen ratio from 4:3 to 16:9. It looked like Apple had changed this option in iOS14. Different iPhone models can affect what is available in the Camera app or its settings. One of the attendees asked about upgrading from an iPhone 11 Pro Max to a 12 pro Max. Would it be worth doing? The conclusion was, unless you needed the advanced camera options of the 12 Pro Max, upgrading probably wasn’t worth doing now.
Another member had a iPhone 11 Max that was dropping calls. They had taken it to the Apple store to have them do diagnostics and it seemed fine to them. Ken asked if they had WiFi calling turned on and where the problem usually happened. Apple recommended turning off WiFi calling and, while most of the problems were at the member’s home, calls were dropped in other locations. Ken and Pete suggested turning on WiFi calling, noting that there still could be drop outs of the callers voice but not dropping of the phone call. Checking to see if dropped calls only happened in a certain location could indicate that the cell service could be the problem.
A member had been using Libre office when she got a notice that someone else was using it (she was the only one using it) which did not go away until she quit the program and updated it. Ken thought that there may have been two Libre office applications open. She was also concerned that the problem could have been because her hard drive was getting full. The advice was, if you had a spinning hard drive with only 20% of the disk free, you should start to clean off stuff and if you had 10% or less free you need to get serious about removing some files or getting a bigger hard drive. If you have an SSD, the limits are a little more flexible.
Al had figured out his technical problem (He had updated to Big Sur and hadn’t given Zoom permission to share screens) and was up with news (his links are at the end of the column).
Apple gained market share in the growing PC market and was expected to continue to gain more market share. 9-5 Mac noted that Apple has a guide to “Device and Data Access when Personal Safety is a Risk” that is a good guide to what you can check if you are worried your device and data is being accessed. It is not a guide to use to audit your device, but a guide to what to do if you think you have been breached. Pete noted that his daughter did not know that, when she was using Snap Chat, people could learn her location.
iOS and iPadOS 14.3 are now running on more devices than iOS13 was at a similar time after release. iOS14.3 has added ProRAW for the iPhone 12 Pro and 12 Pro Max camera system, Apple Fitness+ and support for the new Apple AirPod Max headphones. Zoom is adding support for the new Apple M1 chip Macs. Rumors have been circulating about Apple going into the autonomous car market. Apple gained $102 billion in market value on the rumor (more than the market value of General Motors), but Ken has doubts that Apple would get into a market like automobiles. The MacNexus Facebook page is regularly updated with new Apple news and rumors.
Ken thanked Mary & Lisa who volunteer to keep track of members attending the Zoom meeting and Bob White for maintaining the membership rolls. Ken got thank yous for his hard work at the Zoom meeting also.
Pete Lozzi was up next to talk about Pages, one of his favorite programs. He thanked us for having him again — noting that we are one of his favorite groups to speak to. He likes to hang out with the cool kids. He was doing his demo tonight with his iPad to show what you could do on an iOS device. He has done about 400 hours of teaching Pages and thinks it is the best canvas to use for digital documents. Pages is a very capable program for anyone who needs to lay out something for a digital screen.
Pages runs on most devices that have an Apple Logo and it is as capable on an iPhone as it is on a Mac. It is a free program that comes preinstalled on Apple Devices. A newer iPad can use a trackpad or a mouse to give you a cursor. It’s a round dot on the screen, like a place to touch. You can also use a bluetooth keyboard with newer iPads. You can get cases with keyboards and trackpads built in, but you need to make sure the Smart Connector on the case that supplies power to the keyboard works with your model iPad. You can use an Apple Magic Keyboard with newer iPads as well as a mouse.
When you launch Pages, you can choose to do a blank page or pick from a variety of templates. Pete is not a template “guy” but did show us all the templates that Pages has built in. If you start with a template and add a page, the new page will have all the formatting of the template. When you use Pages on the iPad you will not see a lot of tools displayed (unlike Microsoft Word). If you use a template page with items on it, the items are typically grouped and you can easily ungroup them to move them around or alter them. Starting with a blank document (typically 81/2 x 11), you can type to add text as you would in any document program. You can change the size of the document by going to the three ellipses in the far right corner. There are other options also, the first three options are Share, Export, and Print.
Export will export your document to PDF, Word, EPUB, RTF (rich text format) or Pages Template. PDF is the “universal” format but hard to edit once generated. If you will be editing with someone who doesn’t have Pages, Word format can work well as most PC’s will have a copy of Word. When you export to Word, not all of the formatting you have done in Pages will translate well, so be aware that your document may not look the same when it is exported. Most people won’t use EPUB or RTF very often. If you have set up your document in a way you would want to use again, you can export it as a Pages Template and it will be available to you in the template section.
Share will let you send your document via email, text, Airdrop, or iCloud. You can share directly from Pages if you are sending it to someone using Pages or export the file and then share it. You can share a document to the Files app, which looks like a Finder window on your iOS device. If you share a document to iCloud, you can access your document from anything that has a browser, PC or Mac. In a web browser, you can go to iCloud.com, log in, and use Pages to access your document as if it was on a Mac or iOS device. Numbers and Keynote are also available this way. These versions can’t do everything the Mac or iOS versions can but they can do most things that are typically needed.
Pages documents can be set as a canvas which can accept anything you want. You can insert text, images, links, etc. You can do a custom size document, handy if you are doing a poster or something else that will be printed in a large size. By setting the document size to the size it will be printed at, you avoid problems like pixillation and improper scaling which happen when a small document is enlarged. You can shut off “Document Body” which removes the margins and allows you to place images and text where you want. With Document Body on, you get all the benefits of a professional text document. On the iPad you can tap a word to locate the cursor, double tap to choose the word and triple tap to choose a sentence. Once selected a contextual menu will show up with options to cut, copy, delete, speak or bookmark. Speak will read the select text back to you, handy if you are proof reading what you have typed. You can change the style of the selected text also.
The paint brush icon opens the formatting menu for the document. It will show the tools appropriate for the selected item. Formatting takes place in real time so you can see the changes right away. Once something is formatted they way you want and you will want to reuse it in the document, you can save it as a Style, either by copying it or saving it in the formatting menu.
You can do dictation by selecting the microphone ion on the keyboard. Pete will do it but has realized that the way he talks doesn’t always match the way he thinks. Dictation will suggest or highlight items where it is not sure of the grammar you want to use. You can double tap a word and use the menu that appears to see a definition of the word and can search the web for more information.
If you are converting old Word documents into Pages, you will not need to save the Word documents once they are in Pages. Images use the + icon to add, as well as Tables, Charts, and Shapes. You will have more flexibility to to add them if you turn off Document Body, setting the document to Page Layout.
You can add audio recordings, links to YouTube videos that can be clicked on to play. You can use your image gallery, drawings or equations. Links will show up but will not be clickable if you convert document to a PDF.
If you have an Apple Pencil, you can write on the iPad and have it converted into text. Or if you sketch something and include a phone number you can dial that number by selecting it. You can collaborate using Pages, by inviting someone to collaborate via email. Each participant will have different color text, you can comment on someones entry and all the collaborators can see each comment.
Pete had a thought that he could see doing an EmpowerMac class with Zoom so he could cover more on Pages, but he was out of time and we all thanked him for his presentation.
It was raffle time and as usual there were four $25 Amazon gift cards and two $100 gift cards for members attending the meeting. One $100 gift card was for a raffle for the general membership. When Pete was done, we had 51 members attending and Pete use Siri to pick random numbers for all the prizes. Pete stuck around for a while after the meeting ended to answer more questions.
I look forward to seeing you at the next meeting and remember you can forward the invite to a friend or family member to check out the next Zoom meeting.
Links:
iPhone 11 Pro “Capture Image Outside the Frame” and “Smart Frame” website links
Al Trivett links: