The North Pittsburgh MUG (Mac User Group) has joined the Mid-Atlantic Macintosh User Groups Team ( MaMUGs ). North Pittsburgh is the 45th member of the user group collective, whose goal is “to promote cooperation, camaraderie, collective events and continuous support for Apple and Macintosh User Groups.”
The North Pittsburgh Macintosh Users Group serves the greater Pittsburgh area with the support of MacOutfitters, a Mac vendor. What’s more, NPMUG has unveiled a new program supporting the Lighthouse Food Bank in Butler, Pa. The group is organizing a bi-weekly computer outreach beginning on Thursday, Oct. 9, to offer distribution and support of used Apple computers at no charge to those in need.
In other MUG news, a regional user group conference, audio entertainment for your iPod and a corporate user group are all featured in the latest edition of the User Group Report, the Internet radio show hosted by Chuck Joiner. Joiner is editor-in-chief of the MUG Center, an online resource for MUGs. You can listen to the User Group report online or download a MP3 file for playing on your iPod.
In the latest report, Kathryn Whitacre, chairman of the Raincoast Regional Conference discusses how the event has gone from a PC-only conference to being “platform neutral,” why it’s open to more than just user group leaders and what it takes to produce a regional event. Foy Sperring, Sr. vice president of Strategic Alliances for Audible, discusses why the company believes in user groups and how they continue to support user groups with two special programs.
Gary Cohen of the Mac Special Interest Group of the Boeing Employees Computing Society provides a look at a corporate user group, how it’s organized, what it does, how it has endured changes in corporate culture and focus, who can attend and why Mac OS X has caused renewed corporate interest in the Mac. The latest User Group Report will also have a review of MUG news, Macworld San Francisco announcements, reminders of new and available resources and the month’s coming user group events.
MUGs are good places for making new friends, finding Mac-loving buddies, boning up your technical expertise, finding solutions to technical problems, and sometimes finding a good deal on used hardware. For more info on MUGs, and to find the location of the one nearest you, go to Apple’s User Group Web page.