MacMeetup on Friday 28 Sep 2012: 7.00pm at Holland Village

We return to our usual haunt for makan at Holland Village Block 40 for dinner before we retire to Starbucks for coffee, right next to the Circle Line MRT.

You can let me know on twitter if you can make it.

Next MacMeetup on Friday the 13th (April 2012): 7.00pm at HV

The next meetup sees the return of veteran Laurence Gwee, so is cause for special celebration with John Larkin in attendance.

We return to our usual haunt for makan at Holland Village Block 40 for dinner (ordering done by experts Alvin or Puay Ann) before we retire to Starbucks for coffee, right next to the Circle Line MRT. That one doesn’t close on weekends so we won’t get thrown out at midnight!

You can let me know on twitter if you can make it.

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We had a great time at the last session, dubbed the legacy meetup on the significant date of 15 Feb 2012:

My iBook 12.1" 600 working at the legacy meetup on 15 February 2012

Earlier in January, we held the first meetup this year when John Larkin was in town.

John Larkin had to leave early that night to prepare for a parent-student session at NYGH the next morning. He was under pressure to clearly demonstrate to parents why the iPad was a tool that would bring excitement to education and also provided enhancements to learning and exploration. Perhaps stirred by the legacy talk at the table, I suggested the Singapore Memory Project as an output destination and I hope some output gets directed there as it’s an obvious medium these days.

Well, John went back and worked on a great session that showcased a bunch of tools and got parents engaged. Kenneth Pinto, who was at e-Fiesta 2012 said he heard a reference to that session by John during the practical and passionate delivery of Seah-Tay Hui Yong, Vice Principal, Nanyang Girls' High School who also delivered the keynote address.

Below she talks to fellow-practioners about how they were looking for a teacher's aid for EACH student and the iPad2 was the solution. She mentions John's session in context of increasing parent's understanding and thus support for the programme once they see the device in action to transform learning.

She delivers a great session in a pleasantly down to earth style which highlights the fact their primary objective of providing a tool to enhance learning and make it fun, which turned out to be the iPad2. If you're an educator intending to do likewise, you are invited to tap on their experience just as they did the advise of others on their journey to implement this use.

Mac Meetup - a legacy display, on Wed 15 Feb 2012: 7pm - 10pm (Fall of Singapore anniversary)

I've been telling Ivor I’d like to have an actual Mac meetup, since we do have notes to exchange about Mac software and hardware.

The MacLarkin meetups are great socials and during the last one, I didn't open my mac. Admittedly, some attention has shifted to the iPhone whose potential we have not exhausted.

Let me know if you are able to join us on Wed 15 Feb 2012: 7pm-10pm @ Habour Front Coffee Club. Confirmed so far: Ivor, Kevin, Kenneth, Airani, Puay Ann, Anand and Sivasothi.

I'll see if this can bait some of the old regulars who say the HV meetups are out of the way.

Come with laptops and iPhones charged. AND legacy items in working order to display for photography and bragging rights! I think I still have my first Apple ][ 5 1/4" floppy. I think someone will top that, just wonder with what!

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Photos from the meetup:

• Kenneth PInto - Flickr
• N. SIvasothi - Flickr

“Eat cake and drink coffee!”

Another John Larkin-induced quarterly Mac Meetup started with dinner at the usual hangout at Blk 40 Holland Village and I took over the reins of making the orders in Alvin's absence.

Topics covered in random order during the meetup:

• Prisms (from Siva's session at NUS Physics Demo Lab)
• iOS5 (text expansion; instant camera; iMessage)
• Attention span - John realised that his attention span was getting shorter lately with the urge building in him to crack jokes during class when the students are quietly working on their stuff. Is this a result of the use of smart phones and tablets with information at your fingertips and over stimulation of the brain with apps?
• Dropbox - no one needs to carry a thumbdrive anymore but geeky us all carry storage devices in one form or the other.
• The storage device mini showdown suggested a “Legacy meetup” as a theme for the next meetup. Bring the oldest WORKING gadget you own. Promised were
  • First thumbdrive by Trek
  • Walkman (with cassette)
  • 5 ¼ “floppy disk with portable USB drive
  • 3 ½ “ floppy disk and portable drive
  • Iomega zip disks and portable drive
  • Hole punch card thing Siva says he has
  • Apple 2 machine
  • Apple Newton (not working)
• Inline with the legacy theme, the whole meetup would be shot with a 2mp digital camera (ya, the "vintage" Sony cybershot and it still works! I win!)

Pictures from the meetup from my camera and Kenneth's flickr:

Mini Storage Device showdown.

More photos from the Mac Meetup on 13 Jan 2012

• N. Sivasothi - Flickr link
• Kenneth Pinto - Flickr link

Unfollow John Larkin on Twitter (See why in the Starbucks Photo)

Friday, 7.00 pm. It just stopped raining. At the last John Larkin meeting, it had been raining too. This rain thing seems awfully coincidental. I met early birds Alvin, Kenneth and Ivor at Block 40. Ivor bugged me again on the "vintage" Sony Cybershot (I'm NOT letting it go!).

We knew Kevin wasn't turning up because Kenneth said he saw Kevin's check-in at a clinic on Foursquare in the morning. Aahh...wonders of technology, you don't even need to inform people that you are sick.

Alvin as usual did a great job of ordering dinner and the dishes came at the same time as John's arrival. Siva reached last after his practical and polished off the rest of dinner :-) Conversations of Singapore elections and old neighborhoods were pretty enlightening.

Alvin parted ways after dinner and we trooped down to Starbucks at Holland Village. It was their first night to be opened for 24 hours and it seems pretty empty much to our amazement.

New attendance at Starbucks in chronological order: bubblevicious, aramc and airani. Laurence is Down Under but tried to Facetime a couple of times unsuccessfully.

Did we talk about mac stuff? I just recalled the long search for the "yellow camphor medicated oil with a silhouette of a man" that Siva was reminiscing about turned out to be Sloan's liniment.

Many apologies to aramc and bubblevicious for omitting your photos. I'm just a bad bad bad photographer so the photos ended up really blur.

See John Larkin's blog for his post on the meetup and photos.

Photos from the meet up:

Mac Meetup w/John Larkin this Friday at Holland Village

We meet again, with John Larkin in town, this Friday 7th October 2011: 7.00pm. We'll have dinner at Block 40 and then move on to Holland Village Starbucks at about 8.00pm. Let me know if you’re joining John, Airani, Ivor, Kenneth and myself.

Steve Jobs, RIP

Thanks for the wings, Steve! Never confined!

MacWorld looks back, 06 Oct 2011

John has a couple of jugs...

Friday 15 Apr 2011: 7.00pm - it was a muggy evening and NEA had already reminded us about the prevalent inter-monsoon evening storms - it rains ALL the time, it seems. I intercepted Alvin at Block 40 Holland Drive and we secured a table out of the rain. Next Kenneth plonked down to report the MRT line was suffering yet another hiccup again.

When John Larkin appeared, he was radiant, even after battling a jam from the "ulu" west to reach our regular kopi tiam haunt. We can’t blame the beer at Block 40 for his euphoric mood John. He's just high on life, and even after complete newbies infiltrated his iPad class today.

The conversation was colourful to say the least and food sumptious. I had wisely left dinner orders to Alvin. He handled the job with his famous expertise, that John wanted to postpone his return Down Under so that he'd have time to sample the local fare he relishes and knows so well.

After evaluat
ing John's fitness to visit Holland Village, we marched over, in an infantry section formation along the pedestrian walk until Ivor appeared out of the night to report that Starbuck's Holland Village was any other Starbucks joint this time of the year - full of students.

Happily Kevin had secured a seat and fought off marauding students before reinforcements arrived. And eventually the thesis-writing Anand showed up to rant against a decadent system which was making him repeat his presentation. Since he's writing up, we dutifully ignored his rant.

I think we did talk about some mac stuff at some point. And wondered if Laurence would be back for the next meetup and what they would do with the mugs with the old Starbucks logo.

By the next session, we hope OS X Lion will be stalking prey!

Photos from the meetup.