Share More, Learn More, Do More at HI TLC!

In the morning we have an opportunity to have a comfortable chat with Mac Simpson who has written, published and produced many historical books about Hawaii. We’ll also have an HI Touch Tech Open Help Clinic in the afternoon session.

For those of you unfamiliar with HI Touch Tech… It’s a FREE open-forum help clinic. We’ll field questions and puzzles you bring and explore solutions and fixes. It’s a simple format based on knowledge sharing amongst peers. No lectures, no agenda, no Apple dogma, just tech talk.

So if you have questions about your hardware, software or the network—how to do it, how to fix it, how to understand it—come to HI Touch.

The HI Touch Chat with Mac Simpson will be a rare treat as we’ll have an opportunity to have a conversation with one of the pioneers of desktop publishing. Eugene Villaluz and Terrence Young will host and facilitate the Chat with Mac. Like HI Touch Tech — it’s not a lecture, it’s a conversation. You’ll want to make a list of things you’d like to know from the man who’s over all these years done it all on a Macintosh.

When: Saturday, February 8; 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

Where: Capital One 360 Cafe, 1958 Kalakaua Avenue

Cost: Absolutely FREE

Our Featured Guest

 

I self-identified as a writer in 3rd grade in a two-room schoolhouse in the tiny village of Pottersville, NJ. That decision destroyed my education but has provided me a livelihood for decades.

I originally wrote on yellow legal tablets, and when I wanted to move something—a phrase … a sentence … a paragraph—I got out a pair of scissors and a roll of Scotch tape. I would carefully exorcise the piece to be moved with the scissors, and just as carefully affix it in its new home with the tape. Eventually a chapter looked like a Dead Sea Scroll!

I had tried both an early Apple II and an IBM running DOS and rejected them both as creatively unworkable. When I got the book commission to do WhaleSong, I called a publisher friend, Bob Goodman, and hired him to publish it—perhaps the first time a writer has hired a publisher. I had known Bob for years as a fellow biker and as the youngest staff photographer ever hired by National Geographic. We shared a love of Nikon SLRs. By this time—1986—he was prattling on about this “magic box” made by Apple that “would revolutionize publishing.” (Bob was an incredible visionary and since he had already published 120 books he had the creds to back it up.) Still, I was suspicious, as Bob’s enthusiasm, while contagious, was occasionally misplaced.

I had two VERY technical friends—one an electrical engineer who went on to pioneer fiber optics in the cable TV industry, and the other a statistics modeler at UH. Both were accomplished programmers, and both had been provided the newest PCs by their employers. Both had, instead, purchased Macs with their own money and THEY were as enthusiastic as Bob. THAT sold me. IF two guys with very technical backgrounds, who were comfortable using DOS, rejected it in favor or the Mac, I was on board, too. I went out to ComputerLand and bought a Mac Plus. The salesguy gave me five minutes instruction and told me I was “good to go.”

Suddenly I could cut-and-paste—electronically—without the scissors and tape!

Bob had an artist friend in California who had purchased PageMaker 1.0, and sent us a copy. We had no manual and were two of the least technical humanoids around, but figured out the entire layout program in a half-hour! I have never looked back.

WhaleSong was the first real book ever created on a computer and went on to sell some 35,000 copies. It was called by the then-head of Time-Life Books, “the book which changed the face of American publishing.” Since then I have created more than twenty books—all on various Macs and all on Hawaii history.

I use only two programs—InDesign and Photoshop. Recently added a refurbed, and hopped-up, iMac to my quiver, selecting it, after much debate with myself, over the new MacPro.

Mac Simpson will be the featured guest at the HI Touch Learning Clinic on Saturday, February 8 at the Alii Room, Capital One 360 Cafe. Join us… learn more, share more, do more.

More information about the HI Touch Learning Clinic at: http://hmaus.org/events/event/hi-touch-learning-clinic/

The HI Touch Learning Clinic is free and open to visitors and guests.

Since seating is limited please register for a reserved seat at: http://hmaus.org/about/events/hi-touch-learning-clinic/htlc-registration/