At our next meeting we will take a look at the newly released Windows 8 Operating system which Microsoft hope to be the successor to the popular Windows 7 which was released three years ago.
Ever since windows 95 was released the way in which windows looks and feels has not really changed, this has allowed users to move from one to the next and generally find their way around without any difficulty.
With Windows 8 they have made the largest change yet to aim to make the operating system usable on both touch screen devices as well as the traditional PC. They hope that this move will allow them to grab a slice of the tablet market away from the Apple iPad as well as the large
selection of Android tablets available. They have also added lots of new features as well as other tweaks.
During the evening we will take a look at these changes, discuss the differences between previous versions of windows operating systems and how it will affect the way PCs are used.
We will also take a look at the system requirements to run the new operating system as well as discuss compatibility with older hardware and the versions which the operating system is available in as well as the cost to upgrade.
Time permitting we will also discuss the differences between it to the Mac OS we saw last month and Linux.
I hope you will be able to join us on Wednesday to take a look at these changes for yourselves to see if you think Microsoft has made a move in
the right direction...
Mountain Lion is the latest release of the Mac Operating System and is available on the Mac App Store for £13.99, priced to indicate it is an evolution of Mac OS X rather than a revolution.
Like OS X 10.7 Lion before it is only available from the App Store online so users of older operating systems need to ensure they have the App Store available in order to upgrade.
Because it is an electronic download it updates a hidden restore partition on the hard drive as part of the upgrade and this is used should you need to restore to a clean system. In the event of a disk failure modern 2011/2012 Mac's can retrieve the OS from the Internet as part of the built in recovery routine.
Apple claims that Mountain Lion has 200 new features. This is probably the case but many of these are underlying updates that most users are unlikely to see, the number of headline features is much lower and is reflected in the upgrade pricing.
This is in contrast to Windows 8, which will be a large change for Windows users with a whole new desktop user interface. Mac OS X however is continuing the gradual theme of porting back some of the features of the iPad and iPhone to the desktop.
iCloud can now be used as a destination for saving files rather than storing only to the local disk, to enable them to be backed up securely and also to be made available across multiple devices. Safari bookmarks can also be synced across all devices. Applications can now automatically version documents, with the ability to restore from any point in time, useful to roll back changes in a document.
Mac's equipped with SSD flash hard discs can now wake periodically when asleep to download updates, sync email etc. while still maintaining a standby time on battery of 1 month.
The Mac now has the notifications feature from the iPhone and iPad which centralises notification of new emails, Facebook updates, app updates etc. in a single location. This is similar to the Growl 3rd party add-on for the Mac, and similar notifications on Linux.
The new Messages app allows you to send and receive iMessages from iPad and iPhone users, with the conversations synced to your portable devices.
Mountain Lion now has a dictation feature that is based on Siri from the iPhone. Like Siri it requires a working Internet connection as the dictation is processed on Apple's servers, but it is supposedly able learn and adapt to your speaking style.
In this latest release the whole desktop can be streamed to an AirPlay video device such as an AppleTV. This allows wireless display of the laptop screen and playback of video to a TV.
For gamers, GameCentre is now available on the desktop allowing you to play against iPhone and iPad game players.
Chinese language support has been greatly extended together with support for Japanese blogging sites and search engines as default.
Under the hood there have been further changes to help protect the kernel and core operating system from a security perspective and to sandbox applications. This application sandboxing protects the system stability from poorly written applications but also puts security constraints on the application; it must ask the system to provide access to files outside its application directory, to network resources etc.
The general consensus was that this was an update with no "wow" features but that for the cost the incremental updates to the OS and applications such as the browser made it a worthwhile update.
Nothing particular to report this month.
Gareth
| November 21st | "Windows 8 - The Final Version!" | Michael |
| December 19th | "Party and Gadgets evening" | All |
| 2013 | ||
| January 16th | Social evening - Venue:TBA | All |
| February 20th | "Cloud computing" | TBA |
| March 20th | "RPC Emu" | TBA |
| April 17th | AGM + extras | All |
| Emergency topic - "Slideshow" | All |
Meetings are now on the Third Wednesday of the month unless otherwise stated.
Our meetings are held at the Bourne Vale Social Club, Halifax Road, Ipswich IP2 8RE , for a map and other details please see the website.
http://icenicomputerclub.org.uk
The first visit is free and subsequent visits for non - members is £2·50. The membership fee is £20 due from the AGM date in April, but may be reduced for those joining late in the year.
We are continuing our publicity for EAUG events , however their website has not been updated for a year now. So if you wish to know information please phone one of their contacts.
Meetings are at the Great Baddow Village Hall, on the second Tuesday of the month
opening at 7:30 p.m. for a start at 7:45 - 8:00 p.m.
http://www.eaug.org.uk/mtg.htm
For directions see below (note the new web addresses)
http://www.eaug.org.uk or 'phone one of the contacts on http://www.eaug.org.uk/ppl.htm
Tea/coffee/biscuits usually available.
Visitors pay 2.00 GBP for the evening, which is deductible from the normal joining subscription if you decide to join at a later date.
See the Membership page of the website for more information:
They have now moved to the St. Andrew's Computer Club at Britannia Road, Ipswich.
They have a full programme on the parish website
(http://www.ourstandrews.co.uk), We may be able to make new contact with them to arrange something in common.
"ICENI does not have any Insurance cover for computers or other equipment so please be advised that you bring machines to the club at your own risk."
However many household insurance policies will include cover away from home often with no increase in premium. (Ed.)
Our website has had to be moved since BT is no longer giving free hosting to customers and Peter was running the old website on his account. So Gareth has been fortunate to register a web address of our own and has generously hosted it on his own woolridge domain. All our old website data has been ported to the new site and a redirection placed on the old address. The old site will disappear some time soon
If anyone would like a copy of the CD of our old newsletters this could be arranged.
I am open to suggestions on what people would like to have included in the website.
Our website URL is
http://icenicomputerclub.org.uk
Email to: iceni@woolridge.org.uk