David Feng Apple Regional Liaison: Asia (excluding Japan) December 2004

From Asia to the world, friendly Season's Greetings. Before the year ends, a report from Asia in our December 2004 RL dispatch. I promise to make these more frequent in 2005...


First off, to Singapore.

MUGS Singapore has a new, re-designed website, with the winner, MacBiff, grabbing an iPod mini courtesy of the user group. Also, big news around the region include a presence (MUGS booth) at the recent IT fair SITEX. It was a huge success; Apple Singapore is planning to locate the group bang in the centre at the next IT show.

Next up is a re-design MUGS card (aka Tiger), a new MUGS logo, and shirts as giveaway to paid up members. Oh... and Christmas party and an iPod owners photo shoot just to show Creative (Singapore company that makes that Zen MP3, video player, Windows stuff) that we can!

MUGS: http://www.macuser.org.sg


From the vibrant and ever successful world of MUGS in Singapore, now on over to the Philippines...

The Philippine Macintosh Users Group (Philmug) Christmas party was recently concluded. It was held at Cafe Bola Restaurant located at Greenbelt 3, 2nd Level, Legaspi St., Ayala Center, Makati City last Dec. 12, 2004 from 2:00PM - 6:00PM. During the party, they had a short screening of "Selling Songs of Leyte" by filmmaker Eli Africa, a short movie that won the Best Foreign Short Film under Documentary Awards at the New York International Independent Film & Video Festival.

What makes this movie special is everything was edited using iMovie.

The meeting got help from sponsors, including Canon, Ynzal, LMK Commercial, Microwarehouse, and Games 'n Gadgets. In fact, as they write, the prizes and giveaways were so plentiful, virtually everybody went home with something!

PhilMUG: http://www.philmug.ph/


A quick trip on over to Beijing:

The Beijing Macintosh Union is no more -- we've reverted it back to the old "User Group". In late summer of 2003, we experienced what I'd like to call user group hell as mere understandings between our group and another group (mostly locals) brewed up into what seemed to be a MUG-to-MUG war. Given the prospect of inter-group unease, we were on edge.

Sadly, both sides struck -- and the results weren't pretty. The BeiMac President and Vice-President got their posting privileges on the forum of the other group's web site revoked. In return, BeiMac retailiated by launching a new user group Constitution that established a bureaucratic nightmare for the group. Out went the easy-to-get-along-with Executives Board. The replacement was a terrifying, Draconian Central Executives Committee, with an evil-er Central Standing Executives Committee. Red tape was so heavy, we swore we could have choked in it.

In April of 2004, we decided that the old user group was too much. Desparate for a way to get rid of it, we dumped it and launched the Beijing Macintosh Union. Good job -- until the legalese was laid. Whereas the previous User Group had a Constitution of 40 articles or so, the new Union had one nearing 90 articles. This held up all meetings unti May (there was none from December 2003 through to May 2004).

A terribly low turnout in September 2004's meeting (only three members, two executives counted) made us think once again. Action came in quickly. On October 15, 2004, we dumped the Union and restored the old User Group. One of the first things we did was to dump the Central Executives Committee and its sinister Standing Committee. By November 2004, a very un-bureaucratic Constitution was finally enacted.

Things have been picking up with the group as of late. Since the User Group was restored, four meetings have been held. Recently, BeiMac has launched -- for all of the Mac world -- something exciting: a Wiki project. We're calling this the "Wiki Information Project for Macintosh Users" (official name), but unofficially and informally, we'll call it something like "WikiMac" for short.

If you know Wikipedia, you know wikis and encyclopaedias as wikis -- projects anyone can edit, add, or just plain take part in. While our project is not 100% "Wikipedia, Mac version" (and we refuse to brand it like that), it can't but help being an information knowledgebase for the Mac community at large.

WikiMac has to be seen to be believed. We'll be launching sections including international news coverage, troubleshooting clinics, a Mac history/calendar, even a Mac atlas, where every location has its own Mac "bits" located. For example, click on an entry about Connecticut, and you'll be shown (or you can create) a list of Mac entities there. This, of course, includes user groups. Most importantly, articles about everything Mac will be at WikiMac. We hope to make it a centralised Mac information database.

Macintosh user groups can join in and participate. Far more from just listing your site (although blatant advertising is strongly discouraged -- we're not in the vanity biz), you can also share bits of your Mac knowledge. All text and most graphics will be available under a free licence, so that you can freely re-use that content. The group as an entity can gain a bit of prominence, while the individuals in the group can share Mac-related knowledge.

It's mad. It's insane. We're thinking too different here.

BeiMac: http://www.beimac.com
Wiki Information Project for Macintosh Users: http://mac.wikicities.com (Chinese version: http://zh.mac.wikicites.com )

It's the holidays. Take care everyone -- merry XMAS and happy '05!

Until the new year,

David Feng (Yan Feng)
Apple RL for Asia ex-Japan