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Buying
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on
June 2004 • $3 US
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MacNews - June 2004
Sell it on eBay
by Terry White
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About
“S
ell it on eBay” has become a
common phrase over the last
four years. What some consider to be junk, others find valuable.
eBay allows you to reach a global market
of buyers and sellers. When I’m in the
market for a new piece of hardware or
electronic gadget I look to eBay just as
quickly as I would Best Buy, Circuit City
or the Apple Store. I have literally saved
thousands of dollars on BRAND NEW
electronics over the years. For example,
every LCD projector that MacGroup
has owned (three to date) has come
from eBay. My last two video cameras
came from eBay. The phone system I
now use at home was the result of an
eBay purchase from a local vendor. I love
eBay! Don’t get me wrong, I’m not just an
eBay shopper, I also use eBay as a way to
do house cleaning. I have sold dozens of
items on eBay. When I wanted a better
video camera (Sony DCR-VX2000)
I wanted to sell my existing camera first
(Sony TVR-900). I sold it on eBay for
almost as much as I paid for it and I got
almost two years use out of it.
New eBayers beware!
Although I have never been burned
by an eBay purchase, there are tons of
scams out there and you have to beware
just like you do in your brick and mortar
purchases and other dealings with strang-
ers. You have to do your research. You
have to check up the seller’s past performance. Also keep in mind, like everything
else, if it sounds too good to be true, it
probably is. When you keep common
sense principles in mind, eBay can be an
AWESOME tool for selling and buying.
Like I said, I’ve never been burned, I did
have a couple of hiccups. On one occasion I won a bid on a used discontinued
answering system for my office phone.
The reason I bid on it in the first place
was that I thought it was the exact model
of the one that I already had and I simply
wanted a backup unit in case the one
I was using died. When the answering
system arrived I immediately realized that
it was not the same model. I went back to
look at the auction and it was then I realized that the answering system described
in the auction was the exact same one that
I received. It was I who made the mistake.
I didn’t check the model number closely
enough. I went by the brand name and
glanced at the picture and thought, “that’s
the one”. Obviously it was not the sellers
fault and I was stuck with it. Although I
could have put it back up on eBay and
sold it again, I just never got around to it.
Maybe I will now that I’m thinking about
it. The only other incident that I had was
that I bought an extra memory card for a
digital camera and decided I didn’t need
it and to sell it on eBay. It was new in the
�
box and not opened. I posted it on eBay
and I was quite pleased that it sold for
$5 more than I paid for it! However, two
weeks went by and no response from
the winning bidder. I ended up having
to relist it and it sold the following week
for a little less money, but the buyer came
through and paid immediately. That’s it!
Those are my only “horror” stories in selling on eBay since 1998.
Recipe for a successful
auction
Whether you’re a buyer or seller, the
same rules apply. Do your homework! If
you are a seller, take good pictures of your
item from multiple angles. Sometimes sellers take the lazy route and post pictures
from the manufacturer’s website. I’m leery
of those auctions. I want to see the actual
item that I’m buying even if it’s boxed up
and factory sealed, show me a picture of
the box.
When writing your description, be
as descriptive as possible. Give all the
details you can. Give the purchase date
and warranty information if you can. Also
it makes potential buyers feel a little more
in touch with the seller if you put the
reason down that you’re selling it. If you
upgraded to a newer model, let the bidders know. That lets the buyers know
that you’re probably not dumping the
eBay continued on page 4
MacNews - June 2004 3
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Meetings are held at the
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Welcome New Members
Jo Ann Braxton*
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* = Renewals
Sell it on eBay....................................................... 2
Welcome New Members ...................................... 3
Boyfriends are expensive ........................................ 8
My quest for One Terabyte ................................... 9
Tips and Tricks ...................................................... 11
Freeware ............................................................. 12
MacGroup-Detroit Volunteer Help Lines ................ 13
Apple Events....................................................... 13
4
MacNews - June 2004
eBay continued from page 2
item because there was something wrong
with it. Think of yourself as the buyer and
all the questions you would have. Try to
put all those answers in your description.
Now for the price, what do you
really want for that item? There are two
tactics for getting the price that you want.
One is setting a reserve price. So let’s say
you’re selling your old 5GB iPod and you
want at least $100 for it. Well you can
start the bidding at $5 and have a reserve
price of $100. The reserve price is hidden
from the bidders. They won’t know what
it is while bidding. Once the bidding hits
$100 your auction will say “Reserve price
met.” While this guarantees that you will
not have to sell your item for less money
than you wanted, it is often a turn off to
bidders. After placing a couple of bids
and still being told that the reserve price
has not been met usually translates into
“no bargain here”. Another way to get
your price is to start the bidding at your
minimum price. You start the bidding at
any price you want. However, the higher
the opening bid the less likely you have
people jumping in to bid. I never set a
Reserve Price. Instead I do my homework
and find out how much similar items are
going for. That usually sets my expectations as to what I can expect to get and
I take the chance by setting a reasonable
opening bid and I have always gotten
what I wanted for my items. If your item
is unique and you have to have a certain
amount, consider setting a reserve price
to protect yourself, but then putting that
reserve price in the description so that
bidders know how much you really want
minimally. Charge a reasonable shipping
charge. Some eBayers charge outrageous
shipping fees to try to make an extra buck.
I get turned off by this and look for the
same item elsewhere on eBay with a more
reasonable shipping cost.
Build a good reputation
When you complete a successful
transaction on eBay as either the buyer
or the seller it’s customary to leave “positive feedback” to the buyer and the seller.
For each positive feedback rating you get
from a unique eBayer your rating number
increases. Think of your eBay rating as
your “Credit Score.” No one wants to
deal with someone with bad credit. For
each negative feedback rating you get,
your number obviously decreases. The
higher your rating and having no negative
feedback, the more comfortable buyers
and sellers will be with doing business
with you. Currently my eBay rating is 53.
There are some eBayers out there that
have ratings in the thousands. The problem with starting out on eBay is that you
MacNews - June 2004 5
have no rating. Having a zero rating can
be a showstopper for some eBayers. You
are new! You may be a scammer. You
may not be who you say you are. The
only way around this is to make some
purchases and get some positive feedback. You may also consider selling some
of your smaller items lower priced to build
a reputation first. Pay on time and ship
your items in a timely manner. One sure
fire way of getting negative feedback is
lack of communication. Respond to emails
immediately. Let the buyer/seller know
exactly what’s going on. Keep your buyer
updated as to the status of the item they
bought. When will it ship? It has shipped
and here is your tracking number.
Paying and being paid
One word comes to mind, “PayPal”!
PayPal used to be an independent service for paying people online. They were
so successful and popular with eBay,
that eBay recently acquired them. Think
of PayPal as an online checking account.
It’s very easy to set up a PayPal (www.
paypal.com) account and you can tie it to
your bank account(s) and/or credit cards
for funding. Now PayPal even offers
an ATM Debit Master Card making
it extremely convenient to access your
funds. The biggest advantage to PayPal is
that it allows individuals to accept credit
card payments. That’s right! You can sell
something on eBay and the buyer can
pay you via a credit card. You get this
benefit without the typical credit card
merchant hassles. It’s also secure in that
you never actually get the person’s credit
card number. PayPal handles the transaction completely and deposits the funds
(minus their fee) into your account. From
there you can either transfer the money
to your bank account for free, let it sit in
your PayPal account (it can even collect
interest), or you can withdraw it via the
ATM card. If you make a purchase via
PayPal and you don’t have enough funds
to cover the transaction PayPal will automatically transfer the money from the bank
account or credit card of your choice. It’s
pretty slick! You can use PayPal for more
than just eBay auctions. MacGroup has a
business account with PayPal and we use
their technology on our website to allow
members to join/renew their memberships
as well as buy our Meeting DVDs.
Shipping
When you have sold something on
eBay, ship it as fast as you can once you’ve
been paid. Use a method of shipping
that can be tracked and insured. I usually
prefer to ship via the US Postal service.
They are pretty easy to work with. Rates
are reasonable. They can deliver to any
address including PO Boxes and your
shipments can be insured.
My secret to saving thousands via
eBay
Like I said earlier, I have saved thousands of dollars on eBay when buying
consumer electronics. There are some items
I buy on eBay in a heartbeat and others
that I would probably never buy on eBay.
For example, there have been numerous
scams concerning PowerBooks on eBay.
Therefore, I would probably never think
to shop on eBay for a PowerBook. However, Bill Carver bought one on eBay with
no problem. What I look for are items
6
MacNews - June 2004
described as “NEW in the box” or “Fac- about what kinds of items to buy or not
tory Sealed.” If it’s new then I’m less likely buy on eBay or any other way without
to be buying someone else’s problem. In being able to see them first. One of my
many cases regular resellers who simply best eBay purchases was for a Siemens
want to clear out inventory are selling multi-handset Phone system. I wanted the
the items. For example, two the last three newer model of the one I already had. I
Epson projectors we use at MacGroup didn’t want to pay full price for it again. I
were eBay purchases from Epson resell- found one on eBay and as it turns out it
ers. The first one was a demo unit that was being sold by an ABC Warehouse
had only been used once. The last two located in Utica MI. After I won the bid,
were new in the box and never used. In I was able to drive over and pick the item
all three cases the projectors were pur- up. I even ended up buying a couple
chased for at least $1,000 less than the of additional handsets at a great price.
going rate. I have found that the bigger Once again this was NEW in the Box
the item is pricewise, the more money and they were discounting selling phones
there is to save. Of course this also means and used eBay as a way of closing them
the greater the financial risk. In these kinds out. I saved hundreds on this purchase
of purchases I look for a high number of and made a new friend. Another great
positive feedback and for a seller to have purchase was for a Bluetooth headset for
been selling on eBay for a while (years). I my Sony Ericsson cell phone. I wanted
read the feedback posted by others and a specific model and locally they were
look for any negatives. I look to see what going for about $180. On eBay they
kinds of items this seller has sold in the were going for $90-$100 all day long.
past. If it is a regular store front merchant Lastly, I wanted to upgrade to the newer
I verify the phone number and address. I model of my Sony Universal Remote. I
also ask at least one question via email to needed two of these and again, didn’t
make sure the email address is legit and want to pay the list price of $199 each.
to see if they respond. Again, there is Let’s go to
no perfect way to find out if something eBay! I found
is legit or not. These tips can make it a a merchant in
little safer though. I would probably not NY that had 5
feel comfortable buying a used computer of these NEW
on eBay. The reason is that computers in the Box
are so complex that if it had a intermit- for $99 each.
tent problem, you may not discover it SOLD! In this
till weeks or months after the purchase last example
has been made. I did once buy a used the Seller had
Apple monitor. It was very OLD and used a fairly
it was only $100. Two problems with new feature
this one: one, was that it was so heavy of eBay called
that the shipping cost was very high. The “Buy it Now!”
other problem was that since it was so Buy it Now
old (bought it to be compatible with an enables a seller
old Mac), that most of its life had gone to set a price
out of it and it was very dim. It did work, for an item so
so there was nothing that I could really that a buyer
complain about. It just taught me a lesson doesn’t have to
go through the bidding process or wait
for the auction to end. Basically it turned
his auction into a classified ad. Instead of
waiting a week to possibly be outbid, I
was happy with the “buy it now” price
of $99.85 and I was able to buy two
on the spot.
Whether you have something to sell
or buy today or not, I encourage you
to set up both your eBay and PayPal
accounts today! There is no cost in setting them up and when you are ready
to make a transaction you’ll be all set.
Also as far as eBay is concerned it shows
your member date. In other words “John
Smith member since Dec 2002.” The
older your date, the more stable it makes
you look.
The best resource that I have found
for learning the ends and outs of eBay is:
Sell it on eBay: TechTV’s Guide to Creating Successful eBay Auctions by Jim
Heid, Toby Malina. This PeachPit Press
book is available at Amazon.com as well
as traditional book stores.
■
© Maxtor Corporation 2004. Maxtor, What drives you and the Maxtor styliized logo are registered trademarks and Maxtor OneTouch is a trademark of Maxtor Corporation. All other
trademarks are the property of their respective owners. GB means 1 billion bytes. Total accessible capacity varies depending on operating environment. Maxtor OneTouch is an
appropriate part of your overall data protection plan.
MacNews - June 2004 7
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It’s your passion.
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Save it. Store it.
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8
MacNews - June 2004
Boyfriends are expensive
By Dave Birdsong
B
oy meets girl. Girl falls for boy.
Boy gets cut from the hockey
team he plays for and goes home
to Manitoba. Phone bills go through the
roof!
My daughter Sarah started dating
one of the goaltenders from the Michigan
Stars Jr. hockey team in February. Nice
kid (other than being a Canadian, but
that is another story.)
When Joey was cut at the end of
the month, he headed home to Gimli
Manitoba. Now kids these days love to
talk and don’t even think about what it is
really costing to talk. When we got that
first Nextel bill, we just about had a heart
attack. $500! Sarah had spent $400 on
her cell phone talking to the boy! Then
we got land line bill, $125 to the boy!
Love is rather expensive
these days!
The next month after we really yelled
at her, the cell bill was $325! The land
line had $60 more.
Those charges are at our end, My
guess is that Joey’s parents have had
some huge bills too.
I can’t remember where I first saw
the ad, but last week I saw an ad for
Vonage.com.
$35 a month for unlimited calls to
anywhere in the USA or Canada! I was
off to find out more.
Vonage is a internet company that
uses your broadband internet connection
as a phone line. Once you sign up for
the service they UPS a Motorola Voice
Terminal VT1005V that you plug in
between your cable or DSL modem and
your computer or router.
You plug in a phone and wait a few
minutes for the Voice Terminal to update
and you have your new phone line.
One of the cool features the Vonage
service is the virtual phone line. This allows
you to have extra phone numbers that
are local for your friends or family to dial
you without having long distant charges
on there end. This service runs $4.95 a
month per virtual phone line.
If Grandma lives in Lakeland, FL and
your in Troy, the virtual phone line can be
set up as a Lakeland number so Grandma
call to check up on the grandkids without
running up her phone bill. This for only
$5 a month.
I signed up for the service on a
Monday night and received the Motorola Voice Terminal VT1005V on Friday.
It took about 10 minutes to read the
quick reference instructions and connect
everything up. After waiting the 5 minutes I picked up the phone, there was a
dial tone, I dialed our home number and
it rang.
Once up and running you can log
into the vonage.com site to something
they call the dashboard. From the dashboard you can see your incoming and
outgoing phones. Access your voice mail,
adjust the amount of bandwidth, plus
refer a friend and get credit for the referral for both you and your friend. (If your
interested in the service please email me
and I will refer you and we both save.
dave@davebirdsong.com)
The service includes voicemail or call
forwarding and other than $29.95 activation fee and the $9.95 for to activate
the virtual phone I am very please with
the service so far.
Update, since I wrote this, Vonage
has lowered the price to $29.99 a month,
so the deal has gotten even better. ■
MacNews - June 2004 9
My quest for One Terabyte
by Terry White
A
s the saying goes, “you can never
have too much storage space!”.
I’m a firm believer in this one. So
much so that when I find a good deal
on large hard drives, I buy them whether
I need them right then and there or not.
CompUSA had a web only special on
a Maxtor 250GB 7200 RPM internal
drive. I can’t remember the price, but I do
remember that it was the best price I had
seen in a long time. So I ordered it and
when it came, I just put it away as I didn’t
have an immediate need for it.
One day while looking through
my favorite websites I discovered that
LaCie had come out with a 1 Terabyte
(1,000 Gigabytes) External Hard Drive.
Now technically there is no single hard
drive that is that large. What they did
was basically put 4 250GB hard drives
in an external case and then striped them
together in a RAID so that they would
appear as one big drive on your desktop.
As many of you know I do dabble in
video and I thought to myself that this
drive would be PERFECT for video as it
has a FireWire 800 port to operate at full
speed when connected to a Power Mac
G5. Alas the price of this dream was
$1,199. While it is an excellent price for
what you get, I just couldn’t justify it right
away. Yet it kept taunting me every time I
saw it in a catalog. Then I started thinking
about it more and more. I started picking
it apart and I kept telling myself that there
must be another way to do this. I started
looking for an External case that could
hold four drives. I started with Otherworld Computing (one of my favorite
online shops- http://macsales.com), but
they only had cases that held two drives.
Then I remembered a little site called
FireWire Depot - http://fwdepot.com. I
figured if anyone was going to have a
case like this it was them. I was right, they
had what they called a “3.5 inch DO
1394b FOUR drive FireWire800 enclosure” - http://fwdepot.com/thestore/
product_info.php/products_id/630
The cost of this enclosure is $285
which I kinda think is a little steep, but
in my opinion ALL FireWire enclosures
are overpriced and it was cheaper than
buying four separate FireWire 800 enclosures. Now keep in mind I already had
one internal 250GB drive sitting in a
closet. I just needed three more. I found
a deal on the same drive at dealmac.com.
Dealmac.com and Micro Center in Troy
had the 250GB Maxtor 7200 RPM
drives on sale for about $159 each.
So let’s do the math
We know the LaCie 1TB drive goes
for $1,199 at most places. Add shipping
and the total price is $1,208.99 The
enclosure was $285 plus $8.37 ground
shipping (I chose a faster more expensive
option, but anyway...). That’s $293.37
so far. Now if you were to go to Micro
Center and buy four of the Maxtor
drives at $159.99 each, it would be
$639.96, plus MI sales tax - $678.36
for the drives. Total out the door price for
ONE TERABYTE (that’s one thousand
Gigabytes) is $971.73! That’s a savings
of $237.26. With that much cash left
over you could buy MORE Hard Drive
space!
Installation was OK
I was surprised that the enclosure
didn’t come with any instructions whatsoever for installing the drives. They did
have a quickstart guide on their website,
however it was for a Dual Drive Enclosure,
10
MacNews - June 2004
not the Quad Drive Enclosure that I had.
I was able to figure out how it worked.
Basically the enclosure comes with two
bridge boards to connect two drives
each. The bridge board requires that you
set one drive to the MASTER and one
to the SLAVE (are these terms politically
correct?) You do that for each board and
each set of drives. Once you screw the
boards in to the housing. You attach the
bridge boards and cables. It was interesting that the bridge boards connect internally via short FireWire 800 cables. So
you basically daisy chain from the back of
the enclosure, to the first board, then from
the first board to the second board, then
from the second board to the other port
on the enclosure.
Once I got it all connected and
powered it up. I used the Disk Utility
in Panther (Mac OS X 10.3.x) to not
only format the drives, but to also “stripe”
them together as a RAID. This allowed
me to have a ONE TERABYTE icon on
my desktop! Woohooo!
I was amazed at how quiet the
drive is considering it has four drives in it
and two fans. It’s no louder than a single
drive external drive.
Should you do what I did?
Yes and know. If you want to build
your own drive and by the way you can
use any size hard drives you want in this
enclosure. They don’t have to be 250GB
drives. They just have to be IDE drives. If
you feel technically inclined and can use
a screw driver, then it’s no big deal. Also
keep in mind that this enclosure only has
two FireWire 800 ports on the back.
The LaCie drive has FireWire 800, 400
and USB 2.0. So it’s more versatile for
connecting to a variety of different computers. The LaCie enclosure is also more
stylish. This one from FireWire Depot is
very plain and very generic. However, to
save over $200, I’ll take it! Now to start
building the Backup drive :)
There you have it!
■
MacNews - June 2004 11
Tips and Tricks
By Phyllis Evans
pmevans@mac.com
L
ast month saw lots of storms in our
area. One in particular brought home
the need for a good surge suppressor, and not just to protect the power
supply of your computer. The network in
question consists of a 17” iMac, an older
G3 iMac, a G4 tower and an upgraded
6300 spread across three buildings. All
computers are plugged into APC units.
The DSL modem, router and hub are also
connected to those APC units. What
we didn’t think about until it was too
late was the DSL line. Big mistake. Very
big mistake!
To make a long story short, there
was a lightning strike somewhere nearby.
The strike went through the phone line
and wiped out the modem. It then took
out the router and the ethernet on the
17” iMac which was, fortunately, the
only computer running at the time. From
the router, the surge traveled over the
wiring to the hub in the building next to
the house and also wiped out the hub.
After lots of troubleshooting, the modem,
router and hub all had to be replaced.
The biggie was the iMac which required
a new logic board — expensive repair.
The moral of the story — don’t just
plug your computer into a surge suppressor. Plug your phone or DSL line into it as
well. Cable modem? The newer power
backup/surge suppressor units have ports
for your cable line, too. The really frustrating aspect of this entire disaster was that
all of the blinking idiot lights on modem,
router and hub all appeared to be as they
should. Our initial thought was that we
either managed to lose settings or there
were problems in the entire area. The first
round of troubleshooting with Earthlink
and Apple had each one blaming the
other. Second round showed the motherboard and modem. While the iMac
was in for repairs, Earthlink sent a replacement modem which also turned out to
be defective. Fortunately, we had dialup
backup, but boy, do you miss that highspeed connection! So before the next
round of storms (this is Michigan, after
all), check to be sure that your computers and/or networks are completely protected.
iGetMovies
Ever want to save a Quicktime
movie from a website but the “Save” has
been disabled? Or save a music video
from iTunes? Grab a copy of iGetMovies from http://www.versiontracker.
com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/21533
and start saving without having to dig
through multiple folders to find them. Just
wait until the movie has finished downloading, then launch this mini application.
One word of warning — rename the file
before saving a second one or it will be
overridden. Neat piece of freeware.
Speed up Safari
The following comes from Peter
Chin, LIMac Forum, Long Island, NY:
“Sometimes while surfi ng with Safari,
my CPU usage jumps to and sustains
100% (even when idle!) and scrolling is
sluggish. I also noticed that entering text
in forums and in Web-based email pages
was painfully slow. I did a “Get Info”
on Safari and went to the Languages
window and found all of the languages
enabled. I unchecked all languages except
English, closed the Get Info window,
and launched Safari. Now scrolling seems
back to what it was; CPU usage idles
back to the usual 15–20% when idle
in Safari.”
I tried this, and it really seems to help.
Every website and forum that I checked
after disabling the extra languages seemed
to load much faster. Guess I’ll start looking at other applications.
Mail.appetizer
One of the things that I really like
about Entourage 2004 is its ability to
show a small popup window with a
teaser of incoming messages. If you are in
the middle of something, you can tell at a
glance if that message you’ve been waiting for has arrived or if it’s something that
can wait. You can even send it to the
trash with a click of the mouse without
ever opening the main window. Now
there is a plug-in for Mail that does the
same thing. Mail.appetizer is still in beta
testing, but seems pretty stable. You can
find more information and download
it at: http://www.bronsonbeta.com/
mailappetizer/. Mail.appetizer is donationware. If you like it, consider sending
the author a donation.
■
12
MacNews - June 2004
Freeware
by Chita Hunter
T
here are many developers on the
Web that create valuable freeware just for the love of the Mac.
Depending on who you are and what
you do, some may fall under your own
heading of useable or not for you.
I wandered into the site of developer Amar Sagoo and left with a few
freeware apps that will aide in my daily
computer experience.
http://homepage.mac.com/asagoo/
Prefling
In those ever fantastic tips on how
to work faster I ran across a tip awhile ago
on how to access the System Preferences
panels. That tip was to open the System
Prefs app and hide it (Command - H)
instead of closing the window (which
turns the application off completely). This
way, from the Dock, with the application
still running only hidden, all of the System
Preferences Panels were accessible.
Well, as handy as this tip is, I discovered that I didn’t always like having the
Systems Preferences application running
or preferred it not running when I would
do video intensive work.
There’s a freeware application that
does what I feel the original System Pref-
erences app should do. Let you access
all the panels, from the Dock, even if the
System Prefs app isn’t already running.
Simply drop into the Applications
folder and from there drag it to the Dock.
It works immediately, giving access to all
the System Preference Panels and Preferences with less effort than before.
Tofu
When I don’t have the need to use
a large overly robust text-based program
that takes over a large part of my computer screen, TextEdit fits the bill. It’s used
often for e-note-keeping and relatively
undaunting text-based tasks, particularly
when many programs are running at one
time.
ReadMe files open with TextEdit
and it’s handy when working through
a process outlined in the ReadMe. But,
resizing the window causes a bit of a
dilemma, especially if I resize the window
horizontally. The text will string-out, flowing just as long as the window is wide.
Meaning, the text will not break itself into
visually readable “chunks.”
Enter Tofu. This program turned out
to be quite amusing. It is used specifically
to read documents, not create text in it.
No matter what text document
you open with Tofu, the application will
divide the text file into columns. As the
window is resized horizontally, no matter
how far the window is dragged out, the
column dividing continues, for easy readability. If desired, you can even set the
widths of the columns.
OK, say, you don’t need to resize
the window horizontally, the single
column-sized window works for you.
How is it different from opening this
document in TextEdit? How do you see
the rest of the text if the window is only
one column wide? Well, second question answered first. You can go the oldfashioned way and use the lower scroll or
you can go to Tofu’s Preferences, enable
Speech Recognition and then verbalize
to the application to scroll the document
for you so you can continue reading the
next column of text.
Different from TextEdit? Yes. Tofu
has incorporated it’s own OS Speech
commands to instruct the application to
navigate through the document. Speech
commands also direct Tofu to make the
text larger or smaller. Another added
visual aide is the ability to change the
background color. This makes reading any
long text document easy on the ole eyes.
As a reading tool and for a person
who does a lot of reading on their computer, I enjoy this application, it’s fun. For
me it continues the “Mac Way”, making
■
visually rich and fun experiences.
MacNews - June 2004 13
MacGroup-Detroit Volunteer Help Lines For Members ONLY!
Name
Loretta Sangeorzan
Can Help With
Clarisworks, MS Word 5.1, Beginnersgraphics
Adobe FrameMaker, Photoshop,
General
Ralph Marontate
Mary Grey
Contact via
810-225-9820
Hours Available
Tue., Fri., Sat., Sun.
248-354-3252
248-645-9740
Mon., Tue., Wed. evenings
Mon.-Fri. 10 am - 7 pm
Chita Hunter
Illustrator, MS Excel, PageMaker, Freehand, chita_hunter@macgroup. anytime
QuarkXPress
org
Chuck Freedman
Mac hardware and OS thru OSX, Gen- chuckf@macgroup.org
eral Mac support, General DTP, DVD
Authoring, Cross Platform connectivity.
Jerry McBride
Mon.-Sat. 4-9pm
Utilities, MS Word 5, PageMaker 6, mcbridej@earthlink.net
810-887-3330
Illustrator 6, Freehand 5.5, Clarisworks 4,
Painter 3.1, many other graphic programs
OS X, iPhoto, iTunes, Golive, Photoshop 7 hparsons@comcast.net e-mail checked daily. by tele(photo editing only)
248-435-7438
phone most evenings before
9pm or weekends
Howard Parsons
Terry White
anytime
Mac questions in general, Adobe Prod- http://ibbs.macgroup.org anytime
ucts, Digital Video, Networking
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14
MacNews - June 2004
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FOR SALE
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Good condition
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$130 or Best Offer - 313-865-8111
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