The U.S. July 4th holiday slows down The MUG Event Calendar this week, but there are still some interesting speakers and meetings scheduled.

Apple delivers a triple-threat this week: Apple Senior Systems Engineer Dave Marra will present to an Illinois group, Joe Cox of Apple will talk WWDC to an Australia group and Mike Kurtz from The Apple Store will be the featured guest at a California group. It is also movie week of a sort, with Welcome to Macintosh getting screenings in Kansas and Alaska.

Other topics on the list this week include the new iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3.0 software, iChat, iMovie, Security and more.

Email the details of your next meeting to The MUG Center and we’ll get it listed on The MUG Event Calendar and in our weekly Briefing. We want to hear from you.
Read the rest of this entry »

The list of events is short on quantity but long on quality on this week’s MUG Event Calendar.

In Ohio, Mac author and expert Jim Heid will speak to a June MUG meeting via iChat, while in the United Kingdom, the first annual Final Cut Pro User Group SuperMeet will take place in London.

Other topics on this week’s schedule include finding medical information on the web, Adobe Photoshop, document scanning, Adobe CS4 Bridge, Twitter, Snow Leopard, backing up and more.

Email the details of your next meeting to The MUG Center and we’ll get it listed on The MUG Event Calendar and in our weekly Briefing. We want to hear from you.
Read the rest of this entry »

This week’s MUG Event Calendar is highlighted by a vendor visit and movie screenings.

Christian Pickman of Micromat will visit a California group, while the Apple documentary Welcome To Macintosh will be screened at two different groups, one in Texas and one in California. A group in Virginia will go another direction, showing the Mac community film, MacHEADS.

Other presentations include Apple Mail, iLife ‘09, karoke, Mac OS X troubleshooting and management, backups and more.

Email the details of your next meeting to The MUG Center and we’ll get it listed on The MUG Event Calendar and in our weekly Briefing. We want to hear from you.
Read the rest of this entry »

June’s busiest month on The MUG Event Calendar features special guest presenters as well as a wide variety of home-made demos.

Apple Senior Systems Dave Marra will make not one, but two appearances in New York, and Adam Engst and Chuck Joiner will record a special MacNotables show live via iChat with a Texas group. Jesse Spencer of Adobe will present to one California group, while digital artist Burt Monroy will be the special guest at another California group, and the film Welcome to Macintosh will receive two MUG screenings, one in Oregon and the other in Texas.

Home-grown presentations on the agenda for this month include security, iPhoto, eBay, web design, digital photography, iChat, Skype, 1Password and several picnics and social events.

Email the details of your next meeting to The MUG Center and we’ll get it listed on The MUG Event Calendar and in our weekly Briefing. We want to hear from you.
Read the rest of this entry »

Just one day after Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference keynote by Phil Schiller, Adam Engst of TidBITS and Take Control Books will join Chuck Joiner for a discussion of the developments on MacNotables. So what’s new about that? They’ll be doing it live via iChat with the Cowtown Mac User Group (CMUG).

The event will be recorded for later release, and will cover not only WWDC announcements, but questions from the attendees and whatever else is pertinent, important or entertaining.

Find out about attending the meeting on the CMUG web site, and watch the MacNotables web site for the show when it goes live.

Jackie Hill has delivered the latest Peachipt User Group Program to subscribers. Included in this update are:

• Peachpit author Sandee Cohen’s new podcast supporting her book, From Design Into Print: Preparing Graphics and Text for Professional Printing.
• A free sample chapter from Scott Kelby’s newest, “Photoshop CS4 Down & Dirty Tricks.
• Pricing on Safari Books Online
• A Peachpit Widget to share your favorite titles
• New articles on Peachpit.com
• New releases and more

Don’t want to wait for us to tell you what Peachpit is up to? Find out about all they offer and then sign up to get their bulletin directly on The MUG Center’s Vendor Programs page.

The most recent edition of The Mac Roundtable featured a discussion of Mac User Groups.

The panel of Katie Floyd from The MacCore and MacPowerUsers. Victor Cajiao of TypicalMacUser and TypicalShutterbug, Steve Stanger of The Mac Attack and MUG Center editor Chuck Joiner covered upgrading vs. buying a new Mac, and how the impending release of Snow Lepoard might affect your decision, and then turned to the subject of Mac User Groups. Victor shared some quite surprising concerns over attending his first MUG meeting and Chuck discussed the state of Mac User Groups, what being “recognized” by Apple means, and more. If you’re wondering how new Mac users might perceive your group and what you need to do to overcome their perceptions, you need to listen to this show.

The latest O’Reilly User Group Program newsletter is out. This time, Marsee Henon provides a variety of updates on O’Reilly activities, including:

• O’Reilly UG Program News—Just for User Group Leaders
• New Releases
• Upcoming Events
• Conferences and Special Events News
• School of Technology
• News from O’Reilly & Beyond

For details on all this as well as information on a user group discount to the O’Reilly School of Technology courses and more, you’ll need to visit The MUG Center’s Vendor Programs page for more information on the O’Reilly User Group Program, or subscribe to the newsletter on their web site.

June kicks off with a diverse set of Mac User Group meetings.

Digital artist Burt Monroy will present at an Illinois group, Eric Sanchez of the Apple Store will present iWeb ‘09 to a California group, and the folks from FastMac will show off their products to another California group.

The rest of this week’s calendar is homegrown, but that doesn’t mean it is any less interesting. Topics include Amazon’s new Kindle, iWork, gaming on the Mac, keeping your Mac healthy, individualizing your Mac, EyeTV and Apple TV, backing up and much more.

Email the details of your next meeting to The MUG Center and we’ll get it listed on The MUG Event Calendar and in our weekly Briefing. We want to hear from you.

Read the rest of this entry »