Naoto Fukasawa is an extremely popular designer in Japan, he worked for the powerhouse industrial design firm IDEO but now on his own studio. The concept is that you create products that are used in ways that are "transparent" to the user and require little to no knowledge or training on the item. An iPod is an example of this, without a manual or knowledge of using a scroll wheel, most of us felt right at home on the iPod and use it like professionals without needing a training manual.

The same concept is starting to apply to computing and specifically ubiquitious computing, computing that is everywhere from the floors to household objects. We will have a discussion on its impacts, implications and whether the future of the network bieng everywhere is a good or bad thing.

The meet will be January 17, 2007 (First meeting of the year) at Noon in Room 102 at DeVry University but we may have an encore session and as such I will update accordingly.

I can't believe it, the little guy came on the scene October 21, 2001 and was lambasted and ridiculed for it's existance. Yes, he came as Mac-only in the beginning and every interation since then made him smaller, more affordable and a more capable digital music player.

Five years and 67 million iPods later, he has certainly grown and we will go back to the beginning and show how it came to be. We will also discuss ways to get more out of your iPod.

The meeting times will be Tuesday Deceber 5 at 5PM and Wednesday, December 6 at Noon and free food will be provided.

Yes, a few months ago something sinful happened, some said the impossible happened. Windows on a Mac happened, our upcoming meeting sessions will cover all the alternatives to have your Mac and Windows and use them both too.

The two meeting sesions are as follows both at DeVry University Room 109: Tuesday, October 3 at 2PM or Wednesday, October 4 at 5PM.

Flock, the browser for sharing, and managing your "second life."

This video (Quicktime 7 Required) done by ScreenCastsOnline covers all the major features of the browser, Hope you like it.

I admit it, for awhile the prospect of having Microsoft as a user group partner seemed well...kinna scary. It is a Mac User Group after all, why would Microsoft care about the Mac community? Then things changed, from the Intel transition and now Boot Camp, maybe the Mac is just the other side of the same coin.

But even after these remarkable changes, I still seemed unfazed to make Microsoft a user group partner until I discovered Office for Mac. For those Windows users or if you were hibernating for the last few months, it is not just a Windows port of Office but Office with lots of useful Mac-only features. Oh, there's the Microsoft MacLab "tour" that I took as well

Thank you Microsoft, we look forward to a great relationship with you. See the Microsoft User Group Community here.

MySpace, the social networking site, has exemplified more than any other site the real impact of Web 2.0 and has proven that technology can in fact work to create communities bring people together.

But what if someone could bring the once radical concept of social networking and apply it to a professional setting? Well that is what the O'Reilly Connection has done. While the service is in beta and invite only, it shows great potential. I understand that this came out awhile ago, I just forgot to mention it.

If you are interested in bieng invited, please use the contact me in the links section and shoot me an e-mail.