Attended my first-ever MUG meeting tonight...

pscatespscates
Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
After being really bummed for the past 10 or so months about the lack of any sort of Mac-based group or gathering in my little town here, I received an e-mail yesterday morning alerting me (and others who've written to a long-dormant local MUG website to find out "WHAT is going on? Are you active or not?!?") that the thing was up and going and about 9 of us showed up at this cool little coffee joint downtown.



Just a quickly-planned "here's what we'd like to build this into..." type of meeting tonight. But got to meet a few people and realize that I'm not the only Mac user in Chattanooga, TN.







Was starting to wonder there for a while...







Next "official" meeting is January 20th (third Tuesday of every month is the plan).



Curious to see how this goes and if I can maybe learn some stuff. Hard to tell from tonight. There were definitely a couple of guys there who had their crap together and knew what was what, regarding Macs, Panther, iApps, etc.



What, basically, do these things do? I guess it depends on the people involved, huh?



But hey...free wireless broadband at the coffee shop for over two hours and lots of cutie pie vixens to look around at...



Beat sitting at home, watching "Friends".

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 5
    der kopfder kopf Posts: 2,275member
    Was it guys only, or did you meet the ultimate Tennesseean Mac girl? And what do you talk about on such a meeting? I've always wondered. "Hey, if you press shift while exposé-ing, it goes really slow." Or "if you press cmd-shift-4-space, you get this weird camera-cursor and you can snap any window." Whereupon all attendants jump on their i and [b]power[/i]books to try it out.



  • Reply 2 of 5
    pscatespscates Posts: 5,847member
    All guys last night, but there are female members. The females I referred to above were just other coffee shop customers.



    As I said, last night seemed to be a sort of introductory, "let's lay out some ideas and plans..." kind of thing, as opposed to a true MUG meeting where software/hardware, tips, tricks, etc. were discussed or demonstrated. Was kinda like herding cats, to be honest, but I guess the first time for anything can be a bit wobbly. The one thing I noticed was there was such a range - in just a few people - of experience and knowledge, so part of me wonders how that will pan out. I don't want to go to meetings and have someone drone on about some obscure problem in some obscure app in OS 9 and hi-jack the proceedings. I'm hoping it'll be forward-thinking (OS X/Panther) and deal with real-world, practical and useful stuff: iApps, networking, heavy Panther stuff, .Mac coolness, digital hub/iPod stuff, etc.



    We'll see...
  • Reply 3 of 5
    curiousuburbcuriousuburb Posts: 3,325member
    forward thinking stuff? maybe in some places.



    Many MUG members I've seen are the ones trying to get more life out of their antiques.

    Some won't upgrade, but love to whine & moan they can't enjoy Expose on a 68030 (Wah! Class Action!)

    Some users expect newest & greatest features, then complain they can't find OS 7.5 or 8.1 on CD



    that's not to say people seeking more life from old gear are bad, just that it's nice to find a balance of user skill levels and experiences from these type of gatherings. The predominance i've seen over the years towards the hand-me-down mac crowd more than the power-user crowd (who tend to go for SIGs more than MUGs here in Canada) makes me want more coffee.



    Rumour has it there are good MUGs, but some act and feel like thrift stores or retro-computing nights.

    Novelty value, if you're in the mood to return to the 80's, (and you don't mind if all the evening networking talk revolves around Open Transport and MacPPP extension conflicts instead of that newfangled forward-thinking stuff), but it may seem more like a visit to the senior's centre than WWDC.



    YMMV
  • Reply 4 of 5
    pscatespscates Posts: 5,847member
    Ouch!



    Don't hold back, 'burb!



    Yeah, I know EXACTLY what you're saying...
  • Reply 5 of 5
    curiousuburbcuriousuburb Posts: 3,325member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by pscates

    Ouch!



    Don't hold back, 'burb!



    Yeah, I know EXACTLY what you're saying...



    Well, maybe I came across sounding a little bitter...

    <adds eggnog to coffee>...

    mmmm....
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