acronyms

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More to Say, More to Write

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          Ah, technology!  Ah, new developments!  Ug, new acronyms and new terminology! 
         Off hand, do you remember what JPEG stands for?  What about DSLR?  What about …..?
        Mac to the rescue.  When you click on the Dictionary icon in the Dock here’s what comes up.  
        I expected Apple to provide answers to my growing list of acronyms, but did find some help by clicking on Wikipedia.  The Dictionary didn’t know, neither did the Thesaurus. 
        Click on Dictionary, look at the top menu. Click on Services and see some unexpected categories you can view.  (Remember to click on the little screen shots here to enlarge the size.  Then click on it again to shrink it back and come back to this page.)

        Add to iTunes as a Spoken Track.  Make New Sticky Note.  Summarize. 

        Check out Preferences.  Drag reference sources into the order you prefer.  You can even choose the type of pronunciation you wish to see. 

        I did find www.acronymslist.com  and a list of medical acronyms http://www.medindia.net/acronym/index.asp 
        Heard of Slovoed Dictionaries?  It offers a FREE dictionary of the month.  and can be viewed in Mac App Store.  https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/slovoed-dictionaries/id524941905?mt=12  

More to Say, More to Write!
       So, you wrote something nice TO your mom for Mother’s Day, or you wrote something nice ABOUT your mom for your kids and grandkids. It’s so nice to write with Mac.  And you can print out the size of type that makes it easy to read.  But now, here comes Father’s Day.  Time to turn on your remembrances and your creativity again.
       Looking at an old photograph might stir up some memories.  Nifty to have so many pictures on your computer. Jot down your first ideas for your first draft.  (It’s not done yet!) 
        Writing about a hunting trip sounded promising.  But the first draft on the computer had too many “said” and “asked” words.  Go to Dictionary, and Thesaurus. Look at all the words to choose.  
      Go back to that draft of your writing and click somewhere on it. 

       Then do Command + F  to bring up Find and Replace.  I entered “said” and my happy computer put a nice yellow box around each instance of this word, one at a time.  I could choose which to delete and replace with a suitable synonym.  
        Another time, I wanted to write a fictional piece for some young cousins.  Going to Google, I typed in puzzle and then images.  I scrolled through a lot of clip art and photos until I found one to use.

  I’ve mentioned before, I use bluesquirrel’s program ClickBook for Mac to make booklets.  It shrinks down the type size and picture size to fit the page.  You have over 100 layouts to choose from.  www.bluesquirrel.com  
       You’ll have fun writing with Pages.
       Check our newsblog regularly to see all the info that’s being added.
       Keep up the good work.  See you next time.  Bring a friend!  
* * * 
                          This is today's handout, 5-17-14 at PMUG meeting, by Elaine Hardt 
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You ARE Backing Up, Right?

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Just like a mother, I am smiling while I am reminding you.  Call it nagging, yes?  

Others have said it, you’ve made a commitment to yourself to do it.  So? You are backing up? Time Machine gave me an unexpected notification this week.  I’d never seen such a message before.  And it didn’t explain !  (Click on the screen shot to enlarge it.) 

        Nothing that came to mind to solve this new puzzle.  What did it mean?  The Time Machine message box did not identify which files it could not copy. There was nothing I had done recently to mess with the settings. But clicking on the tiny icon at the top of the screen showed the last back up to be last night at 8:30 pm.  What had I done then? Has some mean old hacker messed with my dear, trustworthy computer?   Taking a break to make lunch, the back of my mind was busily reconstructing the various websites I’d viewed, the changes I’d made on some recent writing, even the emails I’d received.  Finally, an idea.   I’ve been working on a new project to convert some of my stories and poems into an e-book.  I’d never done it before.  And, as of today it’s not yet complete.   On the e-book formatting following the guidelines:  https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help?topicId=A17W8UM0MMSQX6  I’d gotten down to Saving as Filtered HTML.  I clicked to let Microsoft Word 2011 do that job.  A folder was created, and looking at that folder’s content pages didn’t look familiar at all.   Oh, well.  Surely it knows what it’s doing.  But it was HTML.  Could that be what is “read-only” that my Time Machine could not back up? Bravely, I dragged my e-book writing folder to a thumb drive.  Bravely, I then dragged the original folder on the desktop to Trash !  Now, I shut down the computer with a prayer that I hadn’t messed up. Within minutes, I started up the computer again and saw that the FreeAgent Drive sitting behind the computer screen WAS lit up, like it’s supposed to be. I gave it a little time to …..hopefully !  Now, what does the little icon at the top of the screen say?  YES !  It had backed up.  It was behaving !  Stuff was saved.  There are 261 entries for How To  listed here at the PMUG newsblog and 13 are under the heading of Back Up, and they date from 9-10-09 to 2-24-13.   Scan through and see which device and which system you have.  Find what applies to your setup.  You’ll remember that CDs and DVDs can degrade over time and might get scratched. What kind of backup would save your valuable data?   You give it some thought. Then, back it up with a smile.

 
Might Consider Doing an E-book?

Reading a book on an iPad, Kindle, Nook, etc will become a popular thing.  An e-book can be free, at a low price, or varying prices.  You can claim all rights so that the reader cannot share it.  On Amazon publishing is free, and you can specify the price you want.  You could get 35% royalty or you could set it up to get 70% royalty.  You’d read all the legal disclaimers to protect your writing.     Even if you do not envision writing a best-seller for which film makers would offer you a handsome price you could write something that your family and friends would be interested in reading. I’ve not found where it tells how long your e-book will be available to prospective readers.  I need to do the submit and review process before the deal will be finalized.  (There’s more to learn ! )           Here are several helpful sites to research: 

Here’s a publishing guide on-line that is free, the book is $5.99 paperback. 

 
Other Interesting Info 

Here’s an acronym list:  astronomy, atmospheric research, business, chatting, chemistry, medical, NASA, SCUBA diving, government, army official and slang, and more.

 
What Are You Doing, These Days?

        Using some new Apple device?  Learning more on your Mac computer?  Got any suggestions for your friends at PMUG?  Found any interesting info on the Internet that you’d like to comment on?    Have you subscribed to NetNewsWire?  You will then be notified when there’s something new posted to the PMUG site www.pmug.us.          Keep in touch and keep smiling ! This is today's handout at PMUG from Elaine Hardt