NJMUG Meeting Archive:

January 2026 - December 2026
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January 20, 2026
Updates on NJMUG as a Corporation and Election Process, Tribute to NJMUG's Founding Member, Artistry, Interesting and Unusual Web Sites and Canva Affinity Studio Interface

We have long known that our December meeting is our best attended meeting of the year. One of the reasons we believe is that we serve food at this meeting. To help keep up our attendance we will served pizza and soda for all members at our January meeting.


At the Decmeber meeting we talked about how NJMUG will continue and whether or not we still need to be a corporation. At the January meeting we updated everyone on what’s going on.




NJMUG will hold elections at the March meeting and we will talked about the process necessary to elect board members, a president, vice president, secretary and treasurer.






NJMUG has been meeting monthly for 40 years and at the January meeting Rich Wolfson, one our founding members shared a short video and story about Sharon Zardetto Aker, our club’s founder. TidBITS, the oldest continuing Mac newsletter said in May about Sharon;

“Sharon started writing professionally about the Macintosh at its inception in 1984, with articles in the earliest issues of Macworld and the premiere issue of MacUser. She contributed to The Macintosh Bible for its second edition in 1989, served as the lead author/editor for the third edition in 1991, and reprised that role for the 1,000-page seventh edition in 1998. In between, she also wrote The Macintosh Companion: The Basics and Beyond, collaborated on two editions of The PowerBook Companion with her husband Rich Wolfson, edited The Macintosh Dictionary, and penned The Mac Almanac. Throughout the 2000s, she continued as a columnist for Mac magazines, ultimately writing nearly a thousand articles, including one in the final print issue of Macworld.”

Re-visiting our roots will be very helpful in planning our future and we look forward to hearing from Rich.

Catherine Mascis has picked up the Ai ball and walked us through Artistly which promises to "Produce Stunning Images, Logos and Art With Just A Keyword Using AI".


Mark did an overview of Canva's all new Affinity Studio app which just may be the answer to your Illustrator, Photoshop and Indesign needs. Besides the linked training resources built into the app you can learn more about using Affinity Studio by following these recommended YouTube Channels.

  • Elaine Giles - Long form, terrific teacher
  • Affinity for Beginners with Greg - In depth walk through of workspaces and tools
  • Affinity with Dansky - Mostly short form showing how to use a specific tool, create something or use the program
  • GRAPHICXTRAS - For designers, each episode about 30 minutes and provides in depth knowledge of how to use tools, filters, masks, selections, etc…

February 17, 2026
Official NJMUG Election Announcement, Find you iPhone by Text, Interesting and Unusual Web Sites and Creating a Trifold Brochure in Affinity Studio

Alert!

Thanks to our successful January meeting with food, we brought pizza to the February meeting. We asked attendees to bring their own beverages. We held our Q&A session while we were eating, then Mark shared the latest in Apple News.

We’re excited to announce that we’ll be electing new board members at our April meeting! Voting for the new board is open to all members of the NJMUG who have paid their annual dues and attend the March meeting. If you’re interested in joining the board, please reach out to Mark as soon as you can. We're hoping to have anywhere from 3 to 11 board members. To be eligible, you’ll need to be current on your dues, be available to meet regularly with the other board members to discuss club matters, and attend at least 75% of the general meetings. Once the board is elected, they’ll help select the club’s new officers. Any member who meets the same criteria needed for board members is eligible to be an officer in NJMUG. We’re looking for a president, vice president, treasurer, secretary, and fundraiser. If you’re willing to serve in any of these positions, please let Mark know as soon as you can. Contact Agnes if you have questions about your dues.

Our own Nora Aion walked us through how to create an Apple shortcut to help you find your missing iPhone.

Louis Perez presented Interesting and Unusual Websites including:



Mark did the second in his series on Affinity Studio. This time Mark spent most of the time inside the Layout module of Affinity Studio showing how to design a trifold brochure for a resturant. In this session we learned:

  • Sizing concerns & fold types
  • The new way of creating a trifold brochure
  • Page Setup
  • Adding and adjusting spread size
  • Doing math in Affinity Studio
  • Guides and snapping
  • Using shapes
  • Layers
  • Picture frames
  • Stock images
  • Global colors
  • Text frames vs display text
  • Importing text
  • Assigning and creating text styles
  • Search and replace
  • Exporting for print
  • Exporting a digital version - spreads
  • Exporting a digital version - pages
  • Exporting as images - pages
  • Making a mock-up
March 17, 2026
What’s Happling, NJMUG Trustee Candidates Announced, Option Key Secrets, Using Ai to Create Comics, Highlights of CES 2026, LiDAR Scanner: 3D Room Measure and Magic School.com

Food again at March meeting!

We brought in food to the March 17, 2026 meeting again. We held our Q&A session while we were eating.



March 2nd, 3rd and 4th saw Apple releasing the iPhone 17e with the A19 chip, iPad Air with M4 chip, high end M5 MacBook Pro’s, new versions of their Studio Displays and the brand-new MacBook Neo that squeezes into Apple’s laptop lineup just below the MacBook Air. In our latest What’s hAppling section, Mark went into all these devices and who they’re perfect for.

Candidates for NJMUG trustee’s were be officially announced at our March meeting! However there is still time and places open on the board for more trustees. If you want to help keep this club going and can spare the time please reach out to Mark as soon as you can. Voting for the new board is open to all members of the NJMUG who have paid their annual dues and attend the April meeting. After the new board is elected at our April meeting, the newly selected board will select the club’s new officers. According to our club’s by-laws, only board members (trustees) can be club officers. We’re looking for a president, vice president, treasurer, secretary, fundraiser and webmaster. If you’re willing to serve in any of these positions, please let Mark know as soon as you can. Contact Agnes if you have questions about your dues.

Mark Astmann showed us how we can get more from our Mac’s using the Option key with these 10 great tips.


Alan Walter showed us how he used Ai to create a comic strip.

Scott Alenick presented how to build 3D floor plans using LiDAR Scanner: 3D Room Measure on your iPhone.



Catherine Mascis showed us some things from Magic School which bills itself as “The #1 Ai Platform for Students, Schools and Education.

Louis Perez presented Highlight of CES 2026. Included in his presenation were:

  • Television

    • April 21, 2026
    What’s Happling, NJMUG Trustee Elections, David Pogue Talk’s about Apple’s First 50 Years, Mark's Ai Built Club Membership Manager App

    NJMUG April Meeting Was One of the Best Meetings in Years!

    April was a very exciting meeting! Besides the usual “What’s Happening” update, we had our first trustee elections in decades. Our new board met after the general meeting to decide on the new officers for NJMUG. Our new board and officers will be announced shortly on our website and sent out in an email to all members.




    NJMUG 2026 Board Trustee Candidates

    1 George Ajjan 2 Scott Alenick
    3 Mark Astmann 4 Jay Green
    5 Anne Gherardi 6 Jerry Gherardi
    7 Bob Helmond 8 Catherine Mascis
    9 Louis Perez 10 Alan Walter
    11 Rich Wolfson 12 Write in 1
    13 Write in 2 14 Write in 3...11



    Mark recently finished a fantastic book called “Apple, the First 50 Years” by David Pogue. David is a well-known author, a seven-time Emmy winner, and the CBS Sunday Morning Tech host since 2002. Sharon Zardetto Aker, our club’s founder, and David collaborated on a couple of books back in the day. David is famous for his storytelling skills and his ability to explain tech stuff to everyday people. The book dives into Apple as a company, covering its highs and lows, the good and bad choices it made, and the amazing and not-so-amazing hires. Since we’re a Mac group, I bet most of you will recognize many of the characters in this book. I’ve been an Apple fan since the Apple II and have read dozens of books about the company and its key figures. I thought I knew all the interesting Apple stories, but after interviewing over 150 people for this book, David revealed things I never knew. Many of these new insights help us see Apple’s past decisions in a new way. I listened to the audio version, which David narrated himself. It was a fascinating read, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I highly recommend it.

    Speaking of David Pogue….

    He’s planning to join us on Zoom for our April meeting, where he’ll share his thoughts on Apple and the people surrounding both the success and failures of the company. Plus, he’ll be sharing some personal stories about the important decisions Apple made along the way, both good and bad. We’re in for some really interesting stories and a wonderful 45 minutes of David’s time. It’s going to be a special event, so please come, even if you haven’t been to our recent meetings.


    Mark Astmann has been working on and demoed a cool system using AI and his experience as a product manager to help clubs and associations manage their member lists and dues. Imagine groups like our Mac group, civic or neighborhood associations, sports and recreation leagues, garden and hobby clubs, Non-Profit chapters or professional and fraternal societies. This system was designed to avoid the hassle of messy spreadsheets or costly monthly subscriptions many clubs currently rely on. It’s a Zero Installation, Privacy First, Low Cost system.

    Club Membership Manager is an elegantly crafted HTML file that works on any operating system that supports a Chrome-based browser. All of CMM’s data is stored in a small .club file, so you can easily store both the Club Membership Manager HTML file and 500 members in under 8MB of space, making it your Portable Command Center. CMM’s Interactive Dashboard presents all the critical information about your club at a glance, so you can quickly see how your club is doing. Using a green, amber and red color scheme you can easily spot which members have paid their dues, which have dues due in the next 30 days, and which are overdue.

    The program keeps track of when each member’s dues are due, and with just three clicks, it sends an automated email to remind them to send in their checks. Click the dues reminder button, click the Open in Mail button and click your send button. Staying in touch with your members couldn't be easier. Club Membership Manager also allows you to create custom email templates using all the fields from a member’s record as merge fields. The app tracks and records all emails sent to each member, so you can see every email a member has received. The app can generate PDF reports of your club’s data and lets you output CSV files of your member’s data, which can be useful for performing spreadsheet data analysis.

    Finnally, Mark Astmann’s wife, Sherry, was curious about the nutritional content of different fruits and asked Alexa about each one, jotting down the answers. Mark thought this was a task for AI. He tried the same question with several AI tools, and these two stood out. ChatGPT whipped up a lovely infographic, and ClaudeAI created an interactive webpage showing all the information. Mark's daughter asked him to do the same for vegetable and and ClaudeAI created an interactive webpage showing all the information.

    Load, Serve


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    New Jersey Macintosh Users Group

    "Sharing Knowledge and Building Friendships Since 1984"
    NJMUG Group Photo

    Own a Mac? iPhone? iPad? iPod?

    Then the New Jersey Macintosh Users Group is for you! By attending our monthly meetings, you'll:

    • Learn how to use your Mac, iPhone, iPad, and iPod to their full potential.
    • Get the latest information on the newest Apple technologies.
    • Learn the tips and tricks of experienced Apple users.
    • Get to interact with fellow Mac enthusiasts.
    • Get to share your own knowledge with others.
    • Cultivate wonderful long lasting friendships.

    Become an NJMUG Member

    Membership application form

    Download our membership application and mail in with your membership dues or bring it with you to any monthly meeting.