Tim Verpoorten of the excellent MacReviewCast is extending his support to Mac User Groups by offering original articles for their newsletters.

Tim is authoring a monthly article on some of the best Mac freeware that he’s found and covered on the show, and is making it available to Mac User Groups for free.

There are two ways you can receive the articles: Tim is placing them in the Public folder of the surfbits .Mac account (in the sub-folder “MUG”). There are also some companion graphics that can be downloaded as well.

Even better, Tim has agreed to publish the articles to The MUG Center’s Newsletter Content Email List. Subscribers will receive the article automatically by email as soon as it is available. Tim’s articles join Mac 911 by Christopher Breen and regular summaries of the TidBITS articles by Adam and Tonya Engst , along with materials submitted by other list members anxious to give their authors global distribution.

Be sure to join Tim for his weekly roundup of the best new Mac shareware and freeware by visiting the MacReviewCast site or subscribing in iTunes.

If your group is doing a Macworld wrap-up meeting this month, or if you’re just looking for some fodder for discussion of new and interesting products, consider using one or more of MacVoices’ Expo-themed interviews as a basis for or supplement to your presentation.

MacVoices recently completed deliver of 63 different Expo-floor interviews, presentations and panel discussions, including 5 from the Adobe Professional Association and User Group Breakfast. You can easily feature the interviews at your group’s meeting by visiting the MacVoices Macworld 2008 Playlist page and simply hit the play button for the one(s) you want.

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Didn’t make it to Macworld Expo? Couldn’t get in to the sold-out Adobe User Group Breakfast? Can’t remember all of the details of the products shown? No problem. MacVoices has published the audio of the event so you can enjoy the informative and entertaining presentations by Terry White, Dave Helmly and Mike Downey.

Broken down into five separate editions, the topics range from the Adobe User Group Program to the latest Adobe release, Adobe Photoshop Elements 6. The complete list includes:

• MacVoices #824: MacVoices at Expo - Terry White’s Adobe Breakfast Welcome and Discussion of Adobe User Group Program

• MacVoices #825: MacVoices at Expo - Mike Downey of Adobe Introduces Air at the Adobe Breakfast

• MacVoices #826: MacVoices at Expo - Dave Hemly Moves The Adobe Breakfast with Adobe Premier

• MacVoices #827: MacVoices at Expo - InDesign Workflow by Terry White at the Adobe Breakfast

• MacVoices #828: MacVoices at Expo: Terry White Shows Off Adobe Elements 6 at the Adobe Breakfast at Macworld Expo

Take Control: The Mac OS X Lexicon is the most recent effort from author Sharon Zardetto. Now, Mac User Groups can share some of Sharon’s work in their publications.

Sharon is offering “The X-Lex,” excerpts from her book, for MUG publication reprint, each for a limited time. These short articles define and explain terminology from the world of Apple in an informative and entertaining fashion.

To get a copy of the current X-Lex, Just visit The X Lex at 33Things to get the current version. While Sharon isn’t requiring any registration to use the articles, she would like to know who’s publishing her articles, so be sure to sign up and thank her for her support of user groups.

Listen to Sharon talk about Take Control: The Mac OS X Lexicon, and her background with Mac User Groups, on MacVoices #803.

Mac User Group leaders can get a free copy of Take Control books for review or raffle, and offer their members a discount on this and all Take Control books by joining the Take Control User Group Program. Check our Vendor Programs page for details.

The audio of the discussion at the first User Groups 2.0 Virtual Conference is now available for listening and download.

The MUG Center’s first gathering of user group leaders to discuss the state of the MUG community, exchange ideas and look to the future was held on October 29, and keynoted by James Lee of Tropical Software. Jim addressed the group with his top 5 Tips for welcoming a vendor to your user group.

The participants in the conference included:

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 User Groups 2.0 Virtual Conference #1: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The most recent announcements from the Peachpit User Group Program feature the offer of a free resource to help make your next meeting special, a new video series, news of upcoming Final Cut Pro and related titles, a new web design conference, as well as Peachpit appearances at several different conferences in the coming weeks, the monthly book selection and more.

The Peachpit Experience Double Feature is a 2-hour, 2 DVD set that captures the activities and speakers from the Peachpit booth at both Macworld Conference & Expo in San Francisco and Phoshop World in Las Vegas. Speakers include Graham Nash, R. Mac Holbert, Scott Kelby, Sandee Cohen, Bert Monroy and more. The Experience is free to all Mac User Groups, and includes some munchies, books to raffle off, flyers and a chance for one of your members to attend the upcoming Voices That Matter: Web Design Conference for free. Sign up to get your copy now.

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The O’Reilly User Group Program has published the May edition of their “User Group Program News.”

O’Reilly User Group Program chief Marsee Henon invites anyone in the San Francisco Bay Area to stop by the Maker Faire this weekend to say hello, or to meet her at Tech*Ed in Orlando, where she’ll also be attending the International .NET Association(INETA) User Group Leader Summit on June 22.

Other items in this month’s edition include:

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The MUG Center has just completed our annual spring cleaning of our Surfboard, our comprehensive list of Mac User Groups all over the world.

We learned quite a bit from visiting several hundred MUG sites over the past few days, and we’ll be sharing some of that wisdom soon. In the process we dropped quite a few groups, updated links for quite a few others following Google searches on dead links, and even picked up several new listings as a result of those searches.

Having the largest analog list of Mac User Groups on the web isn’t much of a resource if half the listings are dead or out of date, so we changed our rules for this year’s update. We encourage you to visit the Surfboard and confirm that your group’s listing is present, in the correct place and with the current URL. You might think we already did this as part of the review, but sometimes it can be hard to tell if we found the right site.

To get listed or stay listed in this year’s review, a group had to meet these requirements:
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A couple weeks ago we updated you on the evolution of Christopher Breen’s Breen’s Bungalow into the Macworld Video podcast.

Chris and Macworld asked us to remind you that the newest edition is available now. If you liked Breen’s Bungalow, you’ll love the latest edition to the Macworld stable of Mac industry coverage.

This edition deals with something that everyone can identify with: the need to deal with email spam. Chris discusses filtering techniques, third-party utilities that will help cut down on the spam assault and some “Don’ts” when addressing spam.

Tell your user group about the change to the Bungalow and encourage them to subscribe to the new show. You can also show the video at your group’s meeting and use it as the basis for discussion or additional demos of the products Chris identifies.

Chris talked about the change, and what it meant for Mac User Groups in MacNotables #725.

There’s a change in the wind for the very popular Breen’s Bungalow, the video series that Macworld Senior Editor Christopher Breen and Macworld magazine have made available to Mac User Groups.

We’re happy to report that Chris’ efforts have not gone unnoticed, and that the Bungalow has now officially morphed into the Macworld Video podcast. That means that your group no longer has to wait for the special release or worry about coordinating it with your meeting schedule. You’ll now be able to enjoy it as soon as it becomes available by subscribing to it on iTunes.

Recent editions of Macworld Video include two Apple TV editions, a special on the coolest software from Macworld Conference & Expo and more.

You can hear Chris talk about the evolution of the Bungalow into Macworld Video, along with his newest responsibility as the host of the Macworld Podcast (audio) and the ins and outs of podcast production on MacNotables #725.

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