MactechConference
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Talkcast tonight, 7pm PT/10pm ET: MacTech wrapup edition!
All-new dial-in experience! See below -- do not call into Talkshoe, we won't be there. Be sure to set up Fuze Meeting before the show if you want to join in live. It's Sunday once again, like it or not, so as we come to the end of the weekend, we also come to the TUAW talkcast! Tonight we'll have a special guest: MacTech editor-in-chief Neil Ticktin, who'll join us to talk about this past week's MacTech Conference in Los Angeles. So we will spend a little time discussing all of the awesome you missed if you weren't there! We may also get around to the news of the week, provided we can find some. :) Reminder on new-style talkcasting: With some help from the fine folks at Fuze, we're using a new system to record the show. This should let everyone listen in live -- and, if you want, raise your hand as you would in the Talkshoe room to get unmuted and chime in. You can join the call in progress (meeting # is 20099010) at 10 pm ET from any computer via this link; if you download the Mac or Windows Fuze clients ahead of time, you'll get better audio and a slicker experience, but browser-only will work fine. Just click the phone icon to join the audio once you're in. Using an iPhone or iPad? Grab the native clients from the App Store and get busy. (Even Android users can join the party.) Still feel like using the conventional phone dial-in? Just call 775-996-3562 and enter the meeting number 20099010, then press #. While the Fuze web and native clients have a chat channel, we'd like to reserve that for host participants, requests to talk and other real-time alerts... so the full-on chat for the show will appear in this very post at 10 pm tonight. You'll need Twitter, Facebook or Chatroll credentials to participate in the chat. We'll remind everyone to check back in at that time. Your patience and forbearance with our new tech is appreciated in advance. For the time being, the podcast feed of the show will continue to originate from Talkshoe and should be there within 24-36 hours. See you tonight!
Wanna talk OS X Mavericks? MacTech can help!
Goodness, but we had a lot of news from yesterday's event! Now if only you could get together with a bunch of other people who have also spent time with OS X Mavericks and iOS 7. Where, oh where could you find such a place? Well let me tell you... At the 2013 MacTech Conference is where! This is going to be the first place people can finally stop calling it [TOMCRUISE] and [REDACTED] and say whatever they want. Or as MacTech describes it, "Where 7 and Mavericks Meet Reality" This year's MacTech Conference is the first major event after Apple shipped both its new operating systems. And it's primarily geared toward developers and IT professionals, so there's a lot of in-depth, nuts-and-bolts style information here on everything from enterprise Mac/iOS management to deep development talks about a variety of subjects. (I got the chance to go last year and seriously you guys, if you even sit next to the Mac IT person at work, you should be here.) And as a reminder, TUAW readers who register today can save an additional $400 just by being TUAW readers! If it is at all possible for you to attend, you've heard me go on about the "hallway track" in the past, and I've had some truly memorable hallway track encounters at MacTech so I cannot recommend this conference highly enough. Where else can I find myself standing in front of Darth Vader while Andy Ihnatko takes my picture? (Answer: Nowhere else.)
Bigger, better MacTech conference coming this November
The MacTech Conference is expertly run and has always been loaded with good sessions and an abundance of opportunities for the IT crowd and developers. This year MacTech is cranking up the volume, with a number of enhancements plus a newer, better venue. So what's new? The new venue is the Manhattan Beach Marriott. There are now three full days of content. There will be a pre-conference workshop day offering two accreditation/certifications, plus four full-day workshops. They've added a free Microsoft Office for Mac Accreditation course and exam (given by a Microsoft trainer). There will be more sessions, although they aren't all listed yet. Vendor forums will allow attendees to "select the vendors they want to hear more from with a deeper dive." And Jacqui Cheng, of Ars Technica will be the keynote speaker. Currently, MacTech is on "Super Early Bird" pricing at US$899 which saves people $500 until August 15. The Pre-Conference day is November 5th, 2013. The Conference is November 6-8, 2013. Will you be attending?
MacTech Conference 2011 announced for November
MacTech Conference 2011 has been announced for November 2-4, 2011 in Los Angeles. Registration is now open with a limited number of early bird slots available. The event will again be at the Sheraton, which sold out some nights last year. We visited MacTech Conference in 2010 and were thoroughly impressed. The efficiency of the event, plus the depth of content for Mac IT folks or developers (there are two tracks) makes it worth the cost. Check out last year's lineup here. The conference lasts three days, with events during the day and the night. There are lots of opportunities for people to meet, learn from each other and discuss what was seen each day. MacTech acquired NSConference US and has a new Developer Sessions Chair, Steve "Scotty" Scott. Check out Scotty in action on iDeveloper.tv -- he knows what he's talking about! This also means expanded developer sessions from last year. MacTech Magazine is well-known to IT folks, and those sessions will no doubt be stellar again this year. Pricing for MacTech is $999 for three days, meals included, a MacTech Magazine subscription and sessions, plus all the evening entertainment. Early bird registration knocks that down to $799. There are a limited number of scholarships available as well, and you can find out more here. We'll be there again this year and report from the conference. Hope to see you at MacTech Conference 2011! TUAW is a media sponsor of MacTech Conference 2011.
MacTech Conference to offer Apple Certification Exams
Here's good news for aspiring Mac techs attending the MacTech Conference in November. Attendees will be able to visit a study session and take their Apple Certification Exams right there at the conference. It's a great idea, as you'll already be in a "tech-y" mood. Here's how it works. Immediately following the last session of MacTech Conference, Apple Authorized Training Center v.2 Consulting is offering a study hour and exam session: November 5th, 12:30-4:00PM, on site at the conference. Conference attendees can take any Apple Certification Exam that is currently available at the time of testing. The cost of the study session and the exam is included in the US$899 registration fee (a $200 value). You'll find which exams are available here and register here. You say you don't need to take an exam after the conference? Then you can get a $100 discount on the conference and register for this bundle for just $799. Sweet! TUAW is happy to be a media sponsor of the conference, and we're looking forward to meeting some of you there.
