The most active week of the month on the MUG Event Calendar features a wide variety of topics and guests.

Bob LeVitus‘ Mid-Atlantic MUG Tour continues, with stops in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and Apple Senior Systems Engineer Dave Marra presents to groups in New Jersey and Marylan. Jim Heid will deliver a special presentation workshop to a California Group, and MYOB will visit a group in the United Kingdom.

Other topics scheduled for this week include presentations on Scrivnener, iTunes, iWork, Microsoft Word 2008, Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, .Mac, backing up and much more.

Details on your group’s next meeting could be here, listed on The MUG Event Calendar and in our weekly Briefing? There’s nothing to it. Just email the details to The MUG Center.
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Another busy week on The MUG Event Calendar features interesting topics and influential guests.

Apple Senior Systems Engineer Dave Marra will be the featured speaker at a two different New York groups, Digital photography guru Derrick Story will present to a California group, as will John Christopher of DriveSavers. Bob LeVitus‘ Mid-Atlantic MUG Tour kicks off this week in Pennsylvania, and runs through the end of the month. FileMaker will present to one Illinois Group, and another will hold MacCamp.

Other topics on the agenda this week include Adobe InDesign, Adobe Illustrator CS 3, Adobe AIR, Time Machine, Time Capsule, troubleshooting, iWeb and much, much more.

Want to see your group’s meetings featured on The MUG Event Calendar and in our weekly Briefing? Its all up to you. Just email the details to The MUG Center.

Michael Horton, one of the organizers of the Final Cut Pro User group SuperMeet at NAB, has provided this wrap-up report of one of the most successful SuperMeets yet.

“The 7th annual NAB FCPUG SuperMeet is now officially over and you missed it. Well, some of you missed it. An estimated crowd of about 1500 showed up for what turned out to be the largest SuperMeet in our history. People started lining up at 3PM and the show did not end until after 11PM. We had presentations from Apple, Red, JVC, Blackmagic Design, Adobe, Wounded Marines Career Foundation, Phantom and a scary editing tool called the Assistant Editor. We had a crowded room of 30 vendors with some tables 20 people deep. It was nuts.

We gave away more than $90,000 worth of raffle prizes to a completely crazy out of control bunch of fun loving FCS users who could not of been more enthusiastic or patient. 250 “SuperBags” were handed out to the first 250 in line. 1000 “SuperMags” with 100 pages of tutorials and feature articles were also handed out. It was a great night, a long night and whole lot of fun for all of us. If you missed the event, you missed one heck of an event.

Special thanks must go to Apple for arranging the room at the MGM and for their extraordinary generosity and support. Also thanks must go to Adobe, Blackmagic Design and JVC and the other 27 companies, big and small who gave not only their financial support, but their time and expertise. And BIG thanks to all of our volunteers who work so tirelessly and with good humor.

Next up is IBC in Amsterdam. Yes Virginia, we plan on bringing the SuperMeet to Europe and are in the planning stages now. We are currently scouring Amsterdam for a suitable venue and plan to hold the event on Sunday, September 14, 2008. So if you are going to IBC or live in Europe and want to experience a SuperMeet, mark your calendars for September 14, 2008. Trust me, you have never been to an event like a FCPUG SuperMeet.

More on the IBC SuperMeet in Amsterdam as we get closer to the event. Right now, its back to the real world for me.”

If you were not among the lucky ones who were in Las Vegas, fear not: you can still benefit from the event by enjoying the podcasts of some of the presentations available from the show.

In the transition week between two months, the MUG Event Calendar shows off a diverse set of presentations.

Digital photography guru Derrick Story will be the virtual guest of a student group in Massachusetts, user group advocate Nicholas Pyers will be the featured speaker in Australia, and Adobe will make two appearances on two coasts of North America. In New Mexico, a Short Movie Festival will show off the digital filmmaking talents of entrants from around the world.

This must be the Final Cut Pro User Group week; there are five separate FCPUG meetings this week, covering everything from going Blu-Ray, a new editing tool, an NAB show wrap-up and more.

Other topics getting top billing this week include the Fijitsu ScanSnap, FileMaker’s Bento, iWeb, Dreamweaver, InDesign, eBay, YouTube and more.

Want to show off a little? You need an audience, and that’s what you get when you email us to get your group’s activities listed on The MUG Event Calendar and in our weekly Briefing.
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Adam and Tonya Engst have announced a 50%-off sale on all Take Control and Macworld Superguide ebooks now through April 29.

“To celebrate of the 18th anniversary of TidBITS, we’re offering a 50% discount on all Take Control and Macworld Superguide ebooks through next Tuesday, April 29th. To take advantage of the sale, use the link below to start shopping in our catalog; the necessary coupon code will be applied automatically in the first screen of the shopping cart. Note that you can select multiple books from the different tabs in the catalog’s tabbed interface before clicking the Buy Selected Ebooks button to add them to your cart. (Print books are not included in the sale.)”

New and recently updated titles you might especially want to check out include:

• Joe Kissell’s Take Control of Maintaining Your Mac
• Steve Sande’s Take Control of iWeb: iLife ‘08 Edition
• Ted Landau’s Take Control of Your iPhone
• Brian Tanaka’s Take Control of Permissions in Leopard
• Joe Kissell’s Take Control of Easy Backups in Leopard
• Matt Neuburg’s Take Control of Customizing Leopard

Also be sure to check out the latest ebooks from Macworld:

• Macworld Mac OS X Hints Superguide, Leopard Edition
• Macworld Total Leopard Superguide

Although print versions of our books are not included in the sale, print copies ordered from within an existing ebook are still discounted at the cover price, not the price you pay during the sale. So, if you buy a copy of “Take Control of Switching to the Mac” for $5 during the sale, clicking the Print link at the top of the first page will still save you $10 off the normal print price. (For older ebooks that predate the Print link, just click the Check for Updates button and then click the Order Print Copy tab in the Web page that appears.)”

Just when we thought we’d seen it all on The MUG Event Calendar, several new and unique events make their debut.

Justin Krisko of Apple Australia will present to a group “down under” and Apple TV Take Two will be the featured topic in Louisiana. Adobe InDesign will be covered in Wisconsin, Safari in Florida, genealogy in Florida, and email in North Carolina. Music and the Mac will play out in Michigan and Photoshop will come into focus in Georgia.

The unusual events? How about an Earth Day theme in Wisconsin, a ten-minute show and tell in Ohio and a crawfish boil in Louisiana.

What’s your group cooking up for your upcoming meetings? To have your meetings on the menu for The MUG Event Calendar and in our weekly Briefing, email the details to The MUG Center.

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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.

Each year Bob “Dr. Mac” LeVitus leaves the comfort of his Texas home to venture into the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States for his Mid-Atlantic MUG tour. This year is no exception, and four different Mac User Groups will enjoy a variety of presentations by Bob in May.

Bob current schedule includes:

• Main Line Macintosh Users Group - May 10
• MacOutfitters Apple reseller - May 10, demonstrating iLife ‘08
• Princeton Macintosh Users Group - May 13
• Hershey Apple Core - May 14
• Washington Apple PI (Mac Masters Series) - May 30
• Washington Apple PI (Mac Masters Series) - May 31
• Washington Apple PI - May 31 (afternoon general meeting)

Bob is the author of more Mac books that you can count, the most recent of which are Mac OS X Leopard For Dummies and Office 2008 for Mac For Dummies (For Dummies. Bob is a frequent, favorite speaker at Mac User Groups, columnist for The Houston Chronicle and The Mac Observer and a member of the MacNotables panel.

Look for more details of Bob’s visit as they become available right here on The MUG Center.

Tax Day casts its annual shadow over the week in the United States, but things are bright and active for Mac User Groups everywhere, with a terrific roster of presenters, guests and topics.

Macworld Sr. Editor and MacNotables’ member Christopher Breen will virtual-visit a California group, Apple Sr. Systems Engineer Dave Marra will do a double shot, once in New Jersey and once in Pennsylvania, and Prosoft Engineering’s Gordon and Jennifer Bell will make three user group stops in Arizona. Digital photography guru Derrick Story will visit a California group, and Chuck Joiner of MacNotable, MacVoices and The MacJury will do his annual guest auctioneering appearance at a Pennsylvania group.

The week’s biggest MUG event will be in Las Vegas at the NAB show, with the Final Cut Pro User Group SuperMeet at the MGM Grand.

But that’s just the start. Homegrown meetings around the world this week include iLife ‘08, Adobe InDesign, iTunes, iCal, vmware Fusion, Roxio Popcorn, and much more.

Will your group make headlines next week? Next month? Not if we don’t know about it. To have your meetings listed on The MUG Event Calendar and in our weekly Briefing, email the details to The MUG Center.

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Jennifer and Gordon Bell of Prosoft Engineering are on tour next week, scheduled to make three different Mac User Group presentations in Arizona, including two in one day.

Their schedule includes:

• April 16 - Tucson Macintosh Users Group
• April 17 - Arizona Macintosh Users Group - Senior SIG
• April 17 - Arizona Macintosh Users Group

Jennifer and Gordon will be showing off Prosoft’s industry-leading hard drive and data recovery tools, along with the Joesoft line of consumer software, including the just-released Hear.

As always, be sure to visit each group’s web site for time, location and visitor policies.