Our last post of the year is a gift to all Mac users: a new resource for Mac tips - the venerable Mac for Mom. 

What is it?
Mac for Mom is a blog of Mac tips.

Who's Mom?
I'd forgive you for thinking maybe Mom is a giant corporation that makes robots, if you'd forgive me for thinking you watch too much TV. Mom is actually my Mom. She is a real, iBook toting, flesh and blood person.

Why is it called that?
Mom told me she thought the name of the site suggests it's for people who find "for Dummies" books too difficult, but it's really just meant to suggest that it's easy. Not George Bush easy, but easy enough for a Mom who is new to Macs. 

What's this got to do with Whitewater?
For many years, I've emailed Mac tips around the office. This worked well enough as long as people followed along. However, when new people joined - people who would be most likely to benefit from some extra guidance - they'd get a slew of older Mac tips messages all at once. Obviously, not a very effective means of distributing information. 

When my Mom got a Mac, I initially thought I'd drip feed her the tips from Whitewater to help her get the most out of her Mac experience. However at that point, it seemed obvious that a blog would work better than email. Email required too much organization for me to drip feed her the older tips. She was in the same position as people who had newly joined Whitewater. So I decided to design a blog for her. 

Later, when Paula suggested some kind of Eejits Guide to Macs for new joiners, it didn't require much of a leap to see that the people at Whitewater would benefit from having the Mac tips available on a blog. It would be a central library of categorized tips that new joiners could refer to; people no longer had to file messages in their email; they could use it at home; and they could subscribe to the RSSS news feed. 

And so we have come full circle: Mac for Mom is a collection of tips written for the people at Whitewater, but available to Mac users everywhere, on a blog designed for my Mom. 

Have a great Christmas break - we'll be back blogging again in the New Year.

Brad Bell