On Mon, Apr 04, 2005 at 08:58:20PM -0700, Rodney Mishima wrote: > >Those members of euglug who consider themselves to be UNIX people will not > >enjoy EMUG much, it's the wrong sort of venue for a UNIX user. The EMUG > >meetings are lecture format, targetted toward end-users, and the meetings > >are not the place to ask technical questions about things you're having > >trouble with as happens at euglug meetings sometimes. > > I cannot disagree with what you say. My own personal experience with > the Portland MUG actually confirms many of your observations.
The two did at one point (or maybe still do) share some common people, so I'm not surprised. > >If you try, one of the people who answers them for a living will give you > >a business card and ask you to give them a call and they'll be happy to > >help you for a nominal fee. There is also apparently some strong > >resistance to people who would like to answer questions for free and > >undercut these guys' businesses. > > Yes. a lot of the leadership of the MUG are Mac consultants. And, > with the migration of the Mac population to OS X, the need for these > consultants' services is much lower/greatly reduced. Yeah, but even before that, if some end user wanted to ask a technical question, and someone tried to answer it, the social consequences within the group were high. You are supposed to defer to the leadership, who will answer the question with their business card and a consultation fee. It is possible (though no longer easy) to join their ranks because if you start giving out your business cards, you are eating into their business pool. > >It's a great venue for some people on this list, but the UNIXy people > >wouldn't really feel at home and are actually likely to annoy The Powers > >That Be by trying to be friendly and helpful.. > > I encourage you to attend and annoy the heck out of the MUG leadership. That would be looking for problems. Consider: Occasionally I do need some random thing on short notice that I just can't get unless I go to the Mac Store downtown. The people connected to one are connected to the other at least tangentally. Granted, I don't go in there much, but I'd rather not walk into a wall of hostility when I do. I know a small handfull of people who are in that position specifically because they tried to do what you suggest. > At one time, I paid for a one year membership with the Portland MUG > and then let it expire after getting very little value from it. The leadership of the MUG probably got a lot more than you did. When I looked at EMUG, I kept noticing that software and the like was donated to the group, snagged by someone, who would use it for awhile, give a presentation on it, and then keep it. And I kept seeing the same names. That's what it looked like to me, but I freely admit that I do not have a large enough sample to determine whether or not this is a pattern. > But, about 2 years ago, I attended Andrew Stone's presentation and > bought a copy of his Stone Studio software suite. His background > started with the Next Step/ Open Step. And during the initial > releases of OS X , his product line was ready and waiting. I looked at Stone's software and concluded at the time that some of it was useful, but not to me at the price he wanted for it. YMMV. > >are not the place to ask technical questions about things you're having > >trouble with as happens at euglug meetings sometimes. > > BTW, the best place I have found for getting Mac advice is the Apple > store up in Tigard. They have a "Genius Bar", where you can sign up > and get help from someone who has been anointed a "Genius". The ones > I have consulted are helpful and are respectful of anyone who wanted > to use Linux on a Mac. Now see, I have it much easier because I run MacOS X on a Mac. _______________________________________________ EUGLUG mailing list [email protected] http://www.euglug.org/mailman/listinfo/euglug
