Offers are starting to pop up for the annual Macworld Expo & Convention in San Francisco.

1- For a limited time, Apple User Group members can receive a 50 percent
discount on special floor passes. Members can also enjoy an even
better value by taking 15 percent off any Macworld conference package.
Both options represent a substantial savings and are available only to
members using the User Group Priority Code.

These special show floor passes cost $10 (US).

[ Code is for MUG members only. For code please email Gautam or myself ]

Check it out.
http://www.macworldexpo.com

(This offer expires December 14, 2007. Visit the web site for conference
details, rules and package pricing.)

2- Anyone can attend this but only MUG members get the discount.

Macworld 2008: Apple User Group Wine and Cheese Reception
…………………..

Ready for a little fun? Among the folks who will be joining user group
members for a glass of wine on January 14th are luminaries like David
Pogue, Chris Breen, Terry White, Dennis Sellers, Jim Dalrymple, Adam
Engst and Tonya Engst. Add in entertainment and raffle prizes, and this
Apple User Group reception will be the place to be at Macworld. This is
the first event where attendance is not restricted to group officers and
board members, although each registrant must be a user group member to
use the discount code and URL. Register today!

Group members get a 50 percent discount off the regular $20 (US) price.

[ Code is for MUG members only. For code please email Gautam or myself ]

Be there.
http://www.acteva.com/booking.cfm?bevaid=141393

This worldwide offer is limited to the first 300 registrants.

3- OWC giving out floor passes to MWSF 2008

Check out Other World Computing’s front page for a link to their Macworld offerings http://eshop.macsales.com/ . The link is in the upper right corner.

Here are some interesting postings from the web you may or may not have missed -

From Apple…

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=300233
iPod and iPhone: TV Out support

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306904
iDisk: iDisk Syncing takes up more hard drive space than expected in Mac OS X 10.5

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306877
Mac OS X 10.5: Only installation option may be Erase and Install

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306297
About the Mac OS X 10.4.11 Update

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306062
iDVD versions not compatible with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard

From Mac OS X hints …

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20071103144536447
10.5: Install a number of bundled screen savers

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=2007110216041857
10.5: Create multi-page PDFs from images in Preview

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20071031232408602
10.5: Drag and drop and toggle hidden in app switcher

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20071101114025256
10.5: Apply image filters to Address Book photos

Enjoy!

To celebrate the re-opening of the website Macfun.com, the website and mac software publisher Freeverse are giving away a free copy of 3D Hearts Deluxe.

Freeverse’s press release can be found at http://news.freeverse.com/archives/001255.php and the the game offer is available at http://macfun.com/mf/game/1061

Enjoy!

The Cocoaheads LA is a user group that primarily discusses application development for the Macintosh using the Cocoa Programming environment. The group meets every other month on a Thursday in Los Angeles.
This month’s meeting discusses new programming features in Leopard - a round table discussion. If you are interested check out the meeting details on their website:
http://cocoaheadsla.org/meetings/november_8_2007.html.

Looking forward to seeing some of you there.

Now SGVMUG members can share their bookmarks with each other and the world easily. I have created a Delicious account for all of us to share. For those who do not know what Delicious is, let me explain.

Sometimes you don’t want to post an article but just send a website that you found that may be interesting to other members and friends. You can usually write a email to the Mac-Talk mailing list. But then the website address gets forgotten a few weeks later and you have to hunt through your email.

This is where Delicious comes in.

Delicious is a website at www.del.icio.us (yes, thats the address) that allows users to share their book marks with each other and the world. These book marks can be easily accessed from within any browser. It’s very easy to setup. All you need to do is drag a simple script from the website to your bookmarks bar (in Safari or Firefox).

I have also added a link called “Shared Bookmarks” to the sidebar on the right (under Quick Links) for immediate direct access to the bookmarks. So you can just click that and see what bookmarks have been posted.

If you would like to add book marks to our Delicious site the address is www.del.icio.us/sgvmug. You will need a username and password. Please email Andrew or Gautam for the username and password or send a email to Mac-Talk with your request.

I have added a bookmark to get us started.

Enjoy !

Barra, mascot of Mac Developer, BeLight software is preparing their 1st trip abroad and is looking for 10 individuals across the world to show this curious mascot their slice of the world when they visit. According to Barra’s profile, Barra is a MacBook owning sheep born in January 2004 Odessa, Ukraine (the home of BeLight Software). If your curiousity is peeked please check out Barra’s blog for more info via the link below -

http://www.belightsoft.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=2529

SGVMUG General Meeting - Nov. 19th, 2007
Time: 7:00 pm Location: Pasadena Public Library, Main Branch Auditorium

Whatever your field of interest, at some time you may be called-upon to present a lecture or seminar - it may be about your work, your hobbies, your travels, or whatever. When that time comes, knowing how to prepare and deliver an effective presentation will save you the embarrassment of standing in front of your audience and fumbling with your script, the slides, or even the basic task of organizing your materials effectively.

This presentation will not tell you how to organize your thoughts, but it will help you to understand how to put them together into a meaningful and carefully crafted computer-aided slide show.
Read the rest of this entry »

http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20071026082852658

Friday, October 26 2007 @ 08:28 AM PDT
Philosophical and practical notes on installing Leopard

Herewith, a short philosophical and practical guide to upgrading to Leopard.

Your ground of being should be caution and forbearance. Consider the situation both for Apple and for developers:

*

Apple, having allowed this shipment to slip six months already, has had to get Leopard out the door before the end of October by hook or by crook. You may reasonably conclude that this cake is probably not entirely baked. As with Tiger, an early software update (10.5.1) will likely be needed to correct a multitude of issues. Until then, consider yourself a beta tester.
*
Read the rest of this entry »

http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20071023091749337

Tuesday, October 23 2007 @ 09:00 AM PDT
Special Report: Preparing for Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) Installation — Avoiding issues before and after updating

This, Apple officially releases Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) — a major update that will be installed by thousands of early adopters in its first few hours of availability.

The following guidelines are aimed at reducing common issues that occur during as a result of the upgrade process, including pre-update preparation, proper installation, and post-update maintenance.

Backing up your data: A prerequisite Performing a backup prior to embarking on a major Mac OS X upgrade is essential.

Apple offers some excellent tips for standard backups that can be accomplished using the Terminal, or the .Mac Backup application in Knowledge Base article #106941, but for most users, a cloning utility like SuperDuper! proves more useful.
Read the rest of this entry »

http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20071024094829561

Late-Breakers
Wednesday, October 24 2007 @ 09:30 AM PDT
Warning: Do not run DiskWarrior or similar utilities on Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)

DiskWarrior and other tools that modify or rebuild the directory of volumes should not be run after installing Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) until further notice or updates from the developers of these tools.

As part of our special report on preparing for Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) published yesterday we noted that previous major Mac OS X releases have made significant disk directory changes that can react adversely to the processes used by these applications.

Alsoft, the developer of DiskWarrior, has now released a statement on compatibility that is somewhat confusing. It reads:

“[…] until we have a copy of the final build of Leopard, we cannot completely comment on Leopard compatibility.

“We will absolutely support Mac OS X 10.5. While we have the early builds of Mac OS X 10.5 to test with, Apple does not tell us ahead of time what changes or enhancements they plan to make until they provide us with the software and documentation. Apple engineering may make changes right up to the last few days before the release and we wouldn’t know about them until after the fact.
Read the rest of this entry »