Chuck Joiner, editor-in-chief of the Mac user group (MUG) news site The MUG Center, notes this week that Apple provides a free .Mac account to all recognized user groups, but many of them don’t take advantage of it. To help get user group leaders motivated about using the resource, Joiner has added a list of ideas for utilizing .Mac’s 100MB of online storage to the site’s Tips & Tricks section.
Two other useful resources you’ll find at The MUG Center are the vendor offers and “Breen’s Bungalow,” a special version of Macworld magazine editor Chris Breen’s monthly QuickTime video tutorials. The new March vendor offers include special pricing on products from atomicbird, Inventive Software, McGraw Hill/Osborne, NetZero Internet, and others. In addition, previous offers from MYOB, Hemera, O’Reilly, and others are still available.
The March edition of “Breen’s Bungalow” offers tips on searching for things on both the Internet and your Mac; you’ll also find exclusive content created just for user groups. MUGs can freely distribute it to members via CD or hard drive copy. If you’d like to find out how to pass it on to your group members, check out The MUG Center for more details.
As always, the MUG Center calendar has information on the latest happenings at user groups around the world. This week, look for a presentation on Panther to Vancouver, Wash. group AppleVan on March 22, the monthly online MUG Center chat at World Without Borders on March 23, GarageBand demonstrations at the East Carolina Users Group and Manitoba New Media, and more.
In addition, the Macintosh Business Users Society of Greater Philadelphia (MacBUS) will hold their next meeting on March 30, at 6:30 p.m. Jon Falk, a former newspaper photographer who now operates a digital photography studio and education center called The Pixel Place, will be on hand to discuss what’s new in the digital photography realm. He’ll offer tips and tricks and discuss which of the digital cameras currently on the market are the best for your needs.
MacBUS meets monthly in Dorrance Hamilton Hall at the University of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. Visit the MacBUS Web site for more information, including directions. March is an election month for the group, which means they’ll be serving sandwiches and refreshments.