Dorchester — Oct 11th 2011
Gordon was first man in, and started by quoting some short anecdotes which helped us to recall the unique nature of Steve Jobs
- On being shown some final prototype large monitors "Can't you make the corners a bit more round"? This led to an increase in production costs of some 3 to 4 million Dollars
- On interviewing a lady applicant from Java for the post of Software Vice President for Apple "That Java's a bit of shit isn't it"?
- On seeing the first iPod he said "Too big - make it smaller" and illustrated this by dropping it into a fish tank, and pointing out the bubbles as evidence of the space which had been wasted.
Gordon continued by showing us the benefits of 'Things', from a German software company - Cultured Code. This was dedicated to the end of GTD - Getting things Done. This is a Mac application, which can be synched with related apps for iPhone, iPad etc, to provide essentially transportable to do lists in a range of formats. This and another application, Omnifocus are both alternatives, and foster the spirit of GTD. Data can be entered, along with supporting information, and subsequently displayed in a variety of ways, and Gordon described it as 'even better value for money (VFM) than Photoshop. He described how his life had been changed by using Things. Some members of the fielding side blanched visibly at the thought of all this super-efficiency being unleashed, but others were no doubt toying with the idea of giving it a whirl.
Q&A addressed diverse topics -
- How to select email in Lion - select Classic view for display
- Mail refuses to quit. Adobe Updater can stop quite a few apps from quitting, including Mail.
- Diana gave a tip for copying negatives quickly - place negative against screen used to provide back light, photograph negative, then use 'camera effect' app to reverse the resulting negative camera image into a positive.
Gordon explained that in many situations, PIBCAC applies i.e. problem is between computer and chair
After the interval, Euan demonstrated how to saw a member of the audience in half. Maggie volunteered her external hard drive, and Disc Utilities was used to partition it. Data were moved around the various partitions with amazing dexterity, being placed in one partition, and recovered from another, after rearranging the partitions, with aplomb and accompanied by cries of astonishment, to emphasise the amazing versatility of Disc Utilities.
The innings was drawn to a close with Euan's illustrated description of how the Three Wise Men (Mark, Lionel, and Euan) replaced the failing hard drive in Mark's iMac. Euan recommended the iFixit website which shows how a number of different hardware operations can be conducted (without anaesthetic) and gives useful pictures and text descriptions. Some help was also obtainable via youtube videos from Small Dog.
Some points that were emphasised were:
- Photograph all stages, and connector positions as an aid to reassembling the system when the repair has been made.
- Use a towel made of looped material, which will stop small parts and screws from rolling about.
- Take anti - static precautions!
- Store screws of different sizes and small parts methodically - small plastic bags, corrugated cardboard
Stumps were then drawn after an appeal for poor light, but John said that those who wanted to pursue the previous meeting's discussion of Lion, could do so in the bar afterwards.
JSR
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