Welcome to the August/September AppleUsers Spotlight Contest. There are the usual bunch of software packages, physical books, ebooks and Squiz cards to win, plus some copies of Keyboard Maestro.
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September 2010′s Disc of the Month is a DVD that has been compiled with Software freedom Day in mind. Called “Free and Open Source Software for Mac OS X” it is a selection of some of the best, yet totally free, software that’s available for the Mac, collected together on a single DVD… plus some bonus videos! Continue reading »

The August 2010 Disc of the Month, Toolbox Essentials II, is a collection of essential utilities and applications all Mac OS X users are recommended to have.

There are tools to reduce spam; decode and extract compressed files; convert audio files; browse the internet; open and convert graphics and images; open and manipulate text and encode and watch video. Continue reading »

Software Freedom Day (SFD) is a worldwide celebration of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). Their goal in this celebration is to educate the worldwide public about of the benefits of using high quality FOSS in education, in government, at home, and in business — in short, everywhere! The non-profit company Software Freedom International coordinates SFD at a global level, providing support, giveaways and a point of collaboration, but volunteer teams around the world organize the local SFD events to impact their own communities.

Software Freedom Day for 2010 will be held on Saturday, September 18 and registration for teams wishing to participate has opened. But if your team would like access to SFD giveaways, get in quick as only registrations received within the next 10 days will be eligible. Continue reading »

Welcome to the June/July AppleUsers Spotlight Contest. There are the usual bunch of software packages, physical books, ebooks and Squiz cards to win.
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The June/July 2010 issue of the AppleUsers Spotlight is now available for downloading, free of charge, by any Apple User.

The 59 page issue is available in PDF format and can be read using Adobe Reader or Preview under Mac OS X, Adobe Reader for Windows and now in iBooks on the iPad, iPhone and iPad touch. Continue reading »

The Apple Design Awards are announced at a special event during the annual Apple Worldwide Developers Conference to recognize the best and most innovative Macintosh and iOS software and hardware produced by independent developers, as well as the best and most creative uses of Apple’s products.

The Apple Design Awards have been presented each year since 1996 (when they were known as ‘Heidis” which was shorthand for ‘Human Interface Design Excellence’ Awards) and the categories vary from year to year.

The 2010 show saw the first time that the Apple Design Awards were not awarded for Mac OS X products, as this year’s conference focus solely on iOS products. The Mac OS X categories will return in 2011.

Meanwhile we highlight some of the winning Mac OS X products from the last few years… Continue reading »

The Adobe Creative Suite offers a collection of tools to bring out your creative flair, however at over AU$3,900 it is incredibly expensive for the home or small business user.

There are many alternatives for the main components of the CS suite that are available for a fraction of the price and many are designed exclusively for, and take full advantage of, Mac OS X. Continue reading »

Recently we have been updating our list of active Apple User Groups in Australia as we’ve seen one group fold, another start up and a few whose details had changed and we thought this would be an opportune time to seek any other active Apple User Groups that may wish to be included in our listings. Continue reading »

The publication of the April/May issue was ‘ever so slightly’ delayed this time, but we think you’ll enjoy the 60-page bumper issue now that it is here. Continue reading »

In recent times, there has been much publicity for charities and fundraisers for overseas disasters and the like. This got us thinking about how the team here at AppleUsers.org could assist others less fortunate than ourselves, but it was felt that we’d rather support a “local” charity, so we set out a few criteria to help us decide which organization we’d like to help promote.

Some of the criteria we used to help us select an appropriate group, included (in no particular order):

• Ideally be a national based organisation (as our readership is national, and our own team is currently spread across at least three states)
• Provides services to the Youth of Australia
• Preferably have some relevance to technology

and one group immediately sprung to mind — The Smith Family! Continue reading »

The team at Global Delight would like to present before you an All-in-One Screen Capturing Software for your Mac – Voila.

How many times have you wished you could make a quick video off your desktop to explain something? Or capture a few windows to paste them onto your documents or manuals? How about archiving some web pages? Voila lets you do all this and much more… Continue reading »

May 10th to 16th, 2010 is National Volunteer Week (NVW) – the largest celebration of volunteers and volunteerism in Australia, and it provides an opportunity to highlight the role of volunteers in our communities and to say thank you to the more than 5 million Australians who volunteer.

Is YOUR Apple User Group doing anything to thank YOUR volunteers? Continue reading »

Recently, I asked the question “Does your Apple User Group maintain a PR mailing list?” over on the Apple User Group Discussion mailing list. Here is an expanded version of the questions I asked to give User Groups a some food for thought… Continue reading »