I’m all excited about presenting at this user group meeting, not only because they’re all cool and excited Apple fans, but also because this will be my first time speaking at this group. Also, I’ll finally get to try out Keynote for the iPad in a real-world environment. What could possibly go wrong?

The Denver Apple Pi user group meeting starts at 7PM at the Consolidated Mutual Water District building at 12700 W 27th Ave. in Lakewood, Colorado. Directions to the meeting along with additional information about the group are available at the Denver Apple Pi Web site.

See you there!

You can check out everything I mentioned during my presentation over at The Mac Observer, complete with prices and iTunes Store links. Just trying to make your life a little easier.

If you weren’t at the event, sorry I missed you. It was a kick in the pants and there were plenty of really cool people to hang out with. Also, I totally scored an Atomic Love Bombs CD. Life is good.

I’m going to show how to protect your personal information, share stuff with friends online, and show you which apps can help keep your life organized. There’s some fun apps for artists on my list, and I’ll show iPod touch owners how to turn their handheld into an Internet phone.

Interested in making your own music? Cool, because I have some tips on using your iPhone or iPod touch as a musical instrument, too.

As if that isn’t enough, The Mac Observer is exhibiting at the event, so I’ll be hanging on the expo floor with Bryan Chaffin, too. If you aren’t familiar with Bryan, you should be. He’s part of the foundation of TMO and writes some amazingly insightful industry analysis pieces. He’s also part of the uber-cool rock band, The Atomic Love Bombs.

Be sure to stop by our booth and say “Hi.” Of course, we’ll give you a little extra incentive to drop by in the form of some kick ass prizes we’ll be giving away throughout the day.

Clear your schedule for Saturday, October 3, because the expo runs from 10AM to 5PM pacific time. It’s at the Petaluma Community Center in Petaluma, California. You can find out more at the North Coast Mac User Group Web site.

Oh yeah… Here’s a shameless plug for The Atomic Love Bombs: They rock, and you should really support independent bands. You can buy their album at the iTunes Store, or at their Web site. Hop to it.

I’m lucky enough to work in an industry that’s loaded with talent, and I had the chance to talk about Apple’s announcements with a crazy-long list of pros that includes Chris Breen, Michael Johnston, Chuck Joiner, John F. Braun, Terry White, and Bryan Chaffin. We talked about the good and bad with the new iPhone, gave AT&T the smack-down for fumbling on MMS and tethering, and got all worked up in anticipation of Mac OS X 10.6.

It was a true uber geek-fest, and a great reminder that I really do have the best job in the world.

Behind the scenes true fact: I was completely hopped up on Codeine when I did the iPhone Alley podcast thanks to a nasty little gum infection. End result… I’m not that different when I’m drugged or sober. Go figure.

The ever-exciting Jay Nelson, CoMUG’s amazing leader, is out of town this week, so I’m going to be filling his shoes as host for the evening, too. That’s just in case you can’t get enough of me online.

The meeting is on June 11 at 7PM at the NCAR facility in Boulder. And don’t forget: The CoMUG crew also hangs out at Ihop in Boulder after the meetings. Pancakes, tech and free Wi-Fi. What more could you ask for?

The evening lineup along with directions is available at the CoMUG Web site.

If you missed last month, it’s still cool to come this month. There’s plenty more to see, and you’ll get up to speed pretty quickly. The meeting is on March 12 at 7PM at the NCAR facility in Boulder.

Oh yeah: The CoMUG crew also hangs out at Ihop in Boulder after the meetings. You know, in case you eat pancakes while you get your tech on.

The evening lineup along with directions is available at the CoMUG Web site.

I’ll be showing some image editing tips and tricks, talking about why you might want to use certain digital image formats in different situations, and for everyone that’s a little light in the pocketbook, I’ll have some tips on free and cheap ways to edit your photos, too.

I’ve never been to Austin, but I hear it’s a great place. Good BBQ, good music, and a bridge with tons of frakking bats. Yeah, Austin sounds like a very cool place to me.

CapMac meets at Sherlock’s Baker Street Pub at 9012 Research Blvd. Directions to the meeting along with a full line up of the evening’s events are available at the CapMac Web site.

OK, shame on me. Phil did a pretty good job, especially considering Apple gave him the short end of the stick when they dumped their final expo keynote presentation on him.

But enough about Macworld. Let’s get back to CoMUG: You can get a full line up of the meeting presentations and directions on how to get there at the CoMUG Web site. See you there.

It’s true: The Big Bang Theory totally rocks and I should have started watching it sooner. But that’s not the point. The point is that those guys at Apple are frakking smart and anyone that’s worried the little Cupertino-company-that-could will lose relevance now that Steve Jobs is on a medical leave of absence needs to take a big step back and look at the bigger picture.

Let me illustrate. I’m given season one as a gift. All I have to do is click a link in an email to open iTunes and start downloading all of the episodes. When I’m ready to start watching, I plug my MacBook Pro into my TV and even though everything works easily and just as it should I immediately get why people that have an Apple TV love it. The Apple guys already have me contemplating a new Mac hardware purchase.

I don’t start the episode by pressing keys on my Mac. Instead, I whip out my iPhone and start tapping away with Apple’s own Remote application. Now I’m starting to feel like I’m an Apple commercial, but it gets even better.

Between episodes I realize that I really like the show’s theme song — not a big surprise since the Barenaked Ladies have always put a smile on my face. I fire up the iTunes Store app on my iPhone, do a quick search for the theme song, download it and start listening to it in under a minute.

The point is that Apple gets how to fit all the pieces together and make it easy to get and use music and video, and they know how to design the devices and software that tie all the parts together in a way that makes you want to use this stuff. They pulled all this off in a compelling way that no other company has been able to match so far, and they did it in a way that makes people feel OK about spending money — well, relatively OK. There’s only so much one company can do when the recording industry and the RIAA are involved.

OK, one little rant: Music and video download prices are still higher than they should be. Someone really needs to turn the oxygen flow back on for these guys and help them see that their 100 year old ideas on recordings needs to go. It’s a new world, people. Welcome to the 21st century.

Now to head outside and see if Apple TVs grow on trees.

I sit in front of a MacBook Pro with a 23-inch Cinema Display all day, I always have the latest version of Mac OS X installed, my iPhone is always close at hand, and there is usually an iPod or two sitting on my desk.

I’m all about my TiVo. Please tell me: How did we survive as a species before the advent of digital TV recording? VCR? Puh-leez, that’s like stone knives and bear skin technology.

I saw Andy Ihnatko wearing a Batman-style utility belt once to carry all of his gadgets around. Sometimes I wonder if I should get one for myself. On the other hand, I might just be better off figuring out how to consolidate everything down into fewer devices. Don’t get me wrong: The belt totally worked for Andy.

I have battery backups on all of my gear. Heaven forbid that I should be without broadband or Twitter access even for a moment. Actually, I always have Twitter access thanks to my iPhone… assuming that Twitter is up and running. But that’s not the point. What I’m really driving at is that a complete lack of electricity would put a crimp in my style.

Lucky for me my tech fixation fits in perfectly with my chosen profession. Since I write about this stuff all the time, I can claim that this is all necessary just to do my job.

That has got to be saving me tons in therapy.