AWUGU Meeting Report About Utility Tools: Pros and Cons and AWUGU Speakers Bureau by Tom Piper
This Apple World User Group University (AWUGU) online gathering of Apple user group leaders was held at 5:00pm CDST, on March 18, 2024, via Zoom. We had 32 participants for this excellent gathering (see Zoom JPG image and PDF attendance list in shared AWUGU folder). The 75-minute video can be viewed at https://youtu.be/abtEg5sXTUs (unlisted on YouTube).
This session opened with my confusing welcome, plus a quick review of the meeting protocols. Most time was devoted to an interactive discussion about the many good and bad examples of mostly Mac utilities like CleanMyMac, TechTools, CarbonCopyCloner, Onyx, StellarDataRecovery, Apple Disk Utility, Memory Clean, Intego, Clam XAV, LockRattler, SetApp, Parallels Toolkit and many others (links to all items show are in Chat file in the AWUGU shared iCloud file, see link below). Many questions and comments were then added.
Dan Wassink then provided an early introduction to and preview of the new AWUGU Speakers Bureau membership website for presenters and User Group leaders which he is providing exclusively for us. A few attendees immediately registered and gave interactive feedback to Dan, with a few additional features suggested. This website is specifically designed to aid in topic finding, information exchange and topical discussions.
Related to these topics and more are the following additions made by attendees with the following links:
• Steve Welch:
Mac TechToolPro: https://www.micromat.com,
Mac DiskWarrior: https://www.alsoft.com/,
Clean My Mac: https://cleanmymac.macpaw.com/20campaign=cmmx_search_brand_us_en&ci=105095406&adgroupid=5816085726&adpos=&ck=cleanmymac&targetid=kwd-12573386450&match=%7Bif:e%7D&gnetwork=g&creative=536959653018&placement=&placecat=&accname=cmm&gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIt_DsqOv-hAMVs0xHAR3GEQDOEAAYASAAEgJA4PD_BwE,
Carbon Copy Cloner: https://bombich.com
• Ann MacKay:
Disk Utility: https://support.apple.com/guide/disk-utility/troubleshooting-dskue2db41be/mac,
LockRattler: https://eclecticlight.co/lockrattler-systhist/,
SetApp: https://setapp.com/apps,
MacWhisper: https://goodsnooze.gumroad.com/l/macwhisper,
MenuGPT: https://goodsnooze.gumroad.com/l/menugpt
• David Bourne: https://central.wordcamp.org
• Robert van Lier: SilentKnight: https://eclecticlight.co/lockrattler-systhist/
• David Bourne: Speakers Bureau: https://awugu.org
• Ilene Hoffman: I’d LOVE to talk to anyone who has owned Macs for years for The DogCow Podcast, contact my email: [email protected]
• Ann MacKay: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogcow
We are very pleased with this third meeting of 2024. Files related to this meeting (including chat, agendas, reports, announcement links, slideshows and videos) are available on our AWUGU shared folder: https://www.icloud.com/iclouddrive/0kF7XwYI98VG0fqvL86PJm02g#AWUGU.
Based on an early suggestion and the Speaker Bureau introduction, it was decided that Revenue & Expenses and AWUGU Website would be the topic on April 15, 2024, at 5:00pm Central Daylight Savings Time (all current AWUGU registrants will receive an invitation to all future meetings).
To become a participant, any interested Apple User Group leader must first register with the AWUGU Coordinator by emailing their name, location, and user group name and web link to [email protected]. Registration must be received by April 12 in order to receive a Zoom Meeting invitation.
