Got the February blues?  Is the constant snow/rain/hard-freeze cycle starting to wear on you?  Wanna get out of the house and have some fun?

Next week (Tuesday, precisely) you can.  It’s time for the February MMOOS (Maine Macintosh Owners & Operators Society) meeting.  We’ll meet next Tuesday, February 19^th, at 6:30 PM in the large meeting room in Bldg. 25 at Thornton Oaks Retirement Community.  See our website at mmoos.net for more information about our group and directions to the meeting.

If you’re new to the Mac a user group meeting is the perfect place to ask questions, get tips to make your transition easier, expand your horizons, and mingle and make friends with others who’ve most likely got the answers to questions you haven’t even thought of yet.

After we get caught up on current events (major upgrades to the iPhone, iPod touch, photo tool Aperture, and Mac OS X “Leopard”), we’ll launch into our featured program.  This month it’s “Managing Media On Your Mac”.  You’ve probably visited web sites, hoping to view a video or listen to an audio clip or view some part of a page, but been rudely “turned away” because you lacked the appropriate plug-in or player.  Perhaps you’ve received email attachments that you can’t view.  Next Tuesday we’re going to equip you with the knowledge and tools to tackle the toughest video/audio/images formats.  Hope to see you there.

As I mentioned earlier, this week Apple released a major upgrade (their second since October) to Mac OS X “Leopard”.  Version 10.5.2 brings a host of welcome improvements to Leopard, a few showing a willingness to accept and implement user feedback.

Many Mac users were unhappy with Leopard’s translucent menu bar, which let the patterns and colors of some desktop images bleed through and could make menu items hard to read.  10.5.2 gives users the option to choose 10.4’s solid menu bar.

Apple also tweaked Stacks, which are special icons in the Dock that represent folders.  Clicking a Stack icon displays the contents of the folder in a fan or grid, from which files can be selected and viewed or opened.  While attractive, this behavior is cumbersome with folders containing many items.  10.5.2 gives users the option to view and select items in a pop-up list.

10.5.2 is a free update available through your Mac’s Software Update panel or from Apple’s web site.