We’re back with the latest user group news from around the country. First up is a presentation being made by Apple’s Barrett Thomson to the Virginia Macintosh User Group (VMUG) on March 1.
Thomson will cover using Final Cut Pro to create videos with still images. He’ll also discuss using Adobe Photoshop to prepare pictures for use in the video, GarageBand to create royalty-free audio, and iDVD or DVD Studio Pro to author the final product to DVD.
The event will start at 6:30 p.m. and will be held at Kenmore Middle School, 200 Carlin Springs Road (one block south of Route 50), Arlington, VA. Visit the VMUG Web site for more information.
MUG Center update
This week, the MUG Center highlights MUG Web Site Roulette, the Western Mac Users Group’s first iMovieFest, the latest edition of Breen’s Bungalow, and more.
MUG Web Site Roulette is a new game that will be part of World Without Borders’ monthly MUG Center Chat on Tuesday night at 10 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, 7 p.m. Pacific Standard Time. Each chat participant spins a virtual wheel that points to a random user group’s Web site, which scores the participant points for using the Apple logo, bring up to date, and so forth. The participant with the most points at the end of the game wins a prize; this week it’s a copy of a Take Control e-book from TidBITS.
The MUG Center is also casting its spotlight this week on the Western Mac Users Group’s first iMovieFest, which was held at Western Washington University. Sixty students broke into teams that were loaned an iBook or a PowerBook and given access to a DV camcorder. In the end, eight movies were created and the group had a great time. Look for an article about the event here on MacCentral soon.
Breen’s Bungalow, which is a MUG Center staple, provides a long list of Panther tips in the February edition. Chris Breen creates the User Group edition of Breen’s Bungalow and makes it available for download through the MUG Center. User group leaders interested in disseminating it to their members can visit the MUG Center to learn how to download their copy.
Group leaders who hunger for more material to distribute to their members should also join the MUG Center’s e-mail list for distributing user group newsletters and other content. The list recently added a Web Watch resource that pulls together useful articles, news, tips, and tricks from Mac-centric Web sites. Each edition of Web Watch will be published on an as-justified basis, and user group newsletter editors are allowed to re-use the summaries and links in their publications.
Finally, new vendor offers just for MUGs were just added to the MUG Center. They include special deals on products from Take Control Electronic Books, Recosoft, XtremeMac, Element K, Design Tools Monthly, and the Apple MUG Store. Special offers from 15 other vendors are still available.