September – October 2004 — Vol 26 No 5

Overview

From the VP for Volunteer Services (Cheryl Lavoie, 4). President's Corner (John Barnes, 5). May Board of Directors Meeting (7). April iLife SIG Meeting notes (Hal Cauthen, 8). May iLife SIG Meeting notes (Cauthen, 9). June General Meeting Show Picnic (Lawrence I. Charters, 12). The Pi holds a Picnic (Richard Rucker, 13). Washington Apple Pi Outstanding Volunteer Awards 2004 (Steve Roberson, 15). July General Meeting (John Barnes, 17). Pi Fillings, the CD, the June/July version (digital photography) (20). Impressions of MacWorld Boston (John Barnes, 21) — Macworld returns to Boston Jul 2004.

Macintosh: E-mail: Keep It Simple (Lawrence I. Charters, 25). Restoring Sight to a Blind iMac (Lorin Evans, 28) — Past President doing hardware repair. Introduction to OpenOffice.org (Doug Brown, 32). X Resource Graph: Because It Looks Cool (Lawrence I. Charters, 38). A Quick Look at Quicksilver (Mike Mellor, 40) — Blacktree's legendary launcher. iView Media Pro in View — Added Tools and Power Highlight 2.5 Upgrade (Dennis R. Dimick, 41). "The Computer ate my Ballot" — Experiences of an Electronic Voting Machine Technician (John Barnes, 44) — Diebold-era tech. Case Study of a Flash Site (Sheri German, 48). Broadband at Sea (John Barnes, 53). BTCS: Recent Apple Security Enhancement (Richard Rucker ed., 56). BTCS: Report on Another Hard Disk Repair Utility (Rucker ed., 59). Using the Calculator in Mac OS X and How to Add its Hidden Powers (Pat Fauquet, 60). The Apple II and III CFFA Project (Richard Dreher, 64) — CompactFlash for Apple. The Apple /// SIG and Washington Apple Pi (2004) (Dave Ottalini, 71). Saving the Unsavable (Chris Hart, 75).

Highlights

"The Computer ate my Ballot" — John Barnes

President Barnes works as an electronic-voting-machine technician — first-person account of e-voting troubles. Major 2004 election issue (Bush vs Kerry, Nov 2004). Diebold/Sequoia/ES&S era.

Macworld Boston Returns — John Barnes

Macworld Boston 2004 — Macworld returned to Boston in 2004 after years in NYC. Pi attends.

Quicksilver Discovery — Mike Mellor

Quicksilver (Blacktree) — the legendary OS X launcher — gets a Pi review. Foundational pre-Spotlight productivity tool.

Restoring Sight to a Blind iMac — Lorin Evans

Past-President Evans still rolling up his sleeves for hardware repair pieces. Iconic Pi service-ethic.

OpenOffice.org Intro — Doug Brown

OpenOffice.org (FOSS Office suite, by Sun) covered — alternative to Microsoft Office. Pi continues open-source coverage from 2003-01 — V25 N01 Linux/Stallman threads.

CFFA — Apple II/III via CompactFlash

CFFA card (Richard Dreher's SCSI-replacement for vintage Apples) — keeping the Apple II/III alive in the 2000s.

Apple III SIG Update — Dave Ottalini

Annual Ottalini Apple III roundup — the Apple III community persists at Pi.

Entities

People: Cheryl Lavoie (VP for Volunteer Services), John Barnes, Hal Cauthen, Lawrence I. Charters, Richard Rucker, Steve Roberson, Lorin Evans, Doug Brown, Mike Mellor, Dennis R. Dimick, Sheri German, Pat Fauquet, Richard Dreher, Dave Ottalini, Chris Hart Topics: Computer Ate My Ballot, Outstanding Volunteer Awards 2004, OpenOffice at Pi, Quicksilver Launcher, CFFA Project, Apple III SIG 2004 References: Quicksilver, OpenOffice.org, iView Media Pro 2.5, CFFA card

Connections to other issues

• Computer Ate My Ballot = President Barnes's election-tech memoir (Bush-Kerry 2004 era)
• Apple III SIG 2004 = annual Ottalini installment from 2003-03 — V25 N02 Updated Apple III History
• OpenOffice at Pi = continuing FOSS thread