One of the most star-studded schedules in quite some time is on deck this week on The MUG Event Calendar.

Original Macintosh Team member and nature photographer Bill Atkinson will visit a California group to show off his latest project, while Apple Senior System Engineer Dave Marra will present to a New Jersey group. "The Mac Observer" will dominate two different groups this week when Bryan Chaffin talks to a Texas group, and Vern Seward addresses a Florida group.

"MacVoices" producer and host Chuck Joiner will virtual visit a Washington group, Tropical Software’s James Lee will grace a Florida group with his presence, Jill Saligoe-Simmel from Mapdiva will demo their mapping utility, Ortelius, to an Indiana group, the folks from YELP will visit a California group, and Jason Panucci of SoundTree will visit a New York group. Other topics on this week’s schedule include several Macworld 2010-themed presentations, iMovie, GPS systems, Photoshop Elements 8, Skype,...

LogMeIn Pro2 for Mac is now available, giving Macs the freedom to be accessed from virtually
anywhere, using an Internet-connected web browser or an iPhone.

With this newest version of LogMeIn Pro2, MacBooks, iMacs and Mac Pros can now be accessed by their users for work or play, in the office or out, from anywhere with an Internet connection. It sports secure file transfer and folder synchronization, printing from a remote Mac to a local computer over the web, on-demand desktop sharing with a remote user, and more. Whether Mac to Mac, Windows to Mac, or iPhone to Mac, Macs can be accessed and used from virtually anywhere, regardless of the user's location.

Pricing starts at US$69.99 per year per Mac, with multi-computer discounts available. To set their Mac free, users can sign up for a free, 30-day trial at http://www.LogMeIn.com/welcome/Pro4Mac .

Pre-orders for the iPad start Friday, March 12, and at least two analysts are predicting the new device will fly off the shelves.

"I expect a surge going out the door," Ezra Gottheil of Technology Business Research told "Computerworld" (http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9166958/Apple_s_iPad_Will_it_sell...). "There's a group of Apple advocates that will queue up no matter what. Apple has the most effective branding in the industry, and these people think of themselves as acolytes, they do think of themselves as the 'Mac' in Apple's 'I'm a Mac' ads."

Marshall of BroadPoint AmTech added that the iPad "will definitely sell out in a matter of hours." Saturday, April 3 is when the iPad will go on sale in the U.S. At least the Wi-Fi only version will; the Wi-Fi + 3G...

Here are the latest iPhone/iPod touch/iPod/iPad apps announced. You can find 'em at the Apple App Store (http://www.itunes.com/appstore/).

Zidware has announced My Colorz & Shapes, their newest educational iPhone app to join My Alphabet, My Numberz, Matheroids and ABC Invaders into the Nanoschool Kids series of personal learning for children. My Colorz & Shapes (US$0.99) offers a way for preschoolers to learn basic color and shape recognition.

TAS Productions has released Sleeping Pill 1.0 for the iPhone and iPod touch devices. The $0.99 app is specifically designed to help you sleep.

GeeThree Softwar has unveiled their first iPhone/iPod game, ImageQuest 1.0. It's a $0.99 pictonym puzzle game in which the player is asked to find the single word that links together a group of pictures. The challenge is to quickly identify the pictures, and keeping the question category...

Hot on the heels of an announced release date (Saturday, April 3) for the iPad, Apple's stock has hit a record high of US$219.70, besting a previous high of $215.59, which it hit on Jan. 5 of this year.

Before today, Apple has been trading in a range between $190 and $215 since last October. Apple’s market cap is approaching $200 billion (it's $199.17 billion).

macProVideo.com (http://www.macprovideo.com) has released a new core training tutorial for Spectrasonics' new Trilian Bass Synth.

This new title is called “Trilian 101: Core Trilian” and is produced by a veteran educator and synthesist named Jonathan Perl. It's available now for both HD download (US$39.59) and for streaming in macProVideo.com’s Online Tutorial Library (to which you can subscribe for $25 per month).

Trillian is a bass machine with a large set of articulations and gestures that combine together utilizing Round Robin technologies to the programmer the ability to create the most realistic bass parts and outrageous bass sounds imaginable.

Smaato (http://metrics.smaato.com), a mobile ad optimizer and mobile advertising company has revealed its latest metrics to the global, mobile advertising market. It says Apple devices have dipped below the average Index of 100 and Windows Mobile has edge ahead of its rival for the first time -- though not universally.

The February metrics of Smaato show the worldwide CTR Index (click through rate) by operating system, the fill rates of mobile ad networks worldwide and for the USA as well as the worldwide ad network response time. With these Metrics Smaato has unveiled for the first time the CTR Index by operating system and the fill rates for South-East Asia.

Smaato’s metrics are based upon 35 mobile ad networks and over four billion ad requests served in the Smaato network of more than 3000 registered mobile publishers in February. The metrics show two strong performing networks with 90% and...

Critics are questioning the Alberta government's decision to spend more than $200,000 to hand out free iPod touches to passengers on a promotional train during the recent Winter Olympic Games, reports the "Global Calgary" (http://www.globaltvcalgary.com/technology/Alberta+Olympic+iPod+giveaway+...)

"It's a little bit over the top to spend that much money handing out free iPods," NDP Leader Brian Mason told the publication. "I just feel a little bit annoyed that my tax dollars went to provide a great party to people I don't even know."

Don Boynton, Travel Alberta's spokesman, said the iPod touches were essentially media kits. The province bought 1,400 at a total cost of $276,000.

Apps & More Software Design has released Job Timer (http://www.appsandmore.com/job_timer.html), a task time tracking and reporting solution designed to be run by Script Timer, its script, Automator workflow, and application scheduling utility for Mac OS X.

Job Timer can automatically keep track of the time spent on files belonging to any number of specific jobs, with no need to have to remember to start or change timers. The user can then schedule Job Timer to produce a report that will show the amount of time each job to be tracked was active, both cumulatively and since the previous report. This makes it easy to assign billable hours.

Job Timer can also keep track of, and report on, the time specific applications are the frontmost application. This provides a way to, for example, determine how much time was spent in a web browser or chat program as part of...

ExactCode has updated its ExactScan Pro (http://www.exactcode.de/site/products/exactscan/) scanning software for Mac OS X (10.4 and higher) to version 2.10. The upgrade sports a new TWAIN Bridge to enable third party applications to utilize ExactScan's built-in drivers and image processing.
Additionally, the new version adds automatic color detection, automatic source selection and more OCR languages. ExactScan 2.10 is currently in beta, and will be available as free update for ExactScan 2 users at the end of March.

ExactScan includes built-in drivers for over 180 document scanners, including devices from Avision, Kodak, Oki, Visioneer and Xerox. Together with the Spotlight indexing services built into Mac OS X since 10.5 ("Leopard") this features form a document management solution suitable for small-office and home-office (SOHO) environments. What's...

Zenopolis has released Tiptoe 1.0 (http://www.zenopolis.com/software/tiptoe/), a privacy application for Mac OS X. It brings a "private browsing" like feature to all sorts of applications, enabling users to run these apps without a trail of their actions being stored.

The ability to reset (remove) existing privacy data is also included. When using applications on their Mac users often leave behind a trail of information about what they have been doing. This can include recent items, history and cache. While this information can be really useful, users may not want it stored on a shared Mac. With Tiptoe the user can choose to open supported applications with privacy so no trail is left behind, but the previous, useful, information they want to keep is left untouched, according to the folks at Zenopolis.

Tiptoe also enhances existing browser privacy. For the...