This year has ended with a blast! Starting after Thanksgiving with "End of Year" raffles held every two or three days, and ending with a "Christmas Blast" weekend with 11 raffle winners, we have had 21 raffle winners receive some great prizes this December. Merry Christmas to all!

Want to find some nice clothing sporting a very styling embroidery of the Mac Guild logo? Wear your User Group colors with pride, and order yourself a shirt or hat today. The Mac Guild embroidery set up fee has already been paid, so you pay only for the clothing item plus an $8 embroidery fee.

Another great write-up from Mac Guild Staff Writer Larry Peng on this year's World Wide Developer's Conference.

As usual, the article includes details from the conference, both in HTML and PDF form.

This is a feature review for the Wacom Graphire4 Tablet. This 5-star review details the Graphire4 tablet, wireless pen and wireless mouse, and discusses the accompanying customization software, and some third party applications. It highlights the operation and precision of the wireless pen and mouse, and the various ways the tablet can be used effectively. The highlights are the ergonomic and pressure-sensitive pen, wireless and battery-less technology, some great 3rd party Mac software, excellent preferences for customizing your needs, and great control for handwriting, photo touch-up and digital art.

Mac Guild WWDC Staff Writer Larry Peng once again provides a detailed trip report on this year's World Wide Developer's Conference. His trip report provides everything WWDC, including Steve Job's keynote, Mac OS X, Leopard, Time Machine, and more. The article also includes several useful links related to the material, including a link to the PDF version of the write-up.

For those of you who had an Apple LCD Studio Display and experienced the blinking power light problem, and if you fixed the problem either yourself, or paid someone else to fix it, you could qualify for a full or partial refund of your repair costs. Apple has settled a class action lawsuit with regards to this specific display problem. Details of the settlement are now included at the top of the article that discusses the backlight problem and solution. Included in the article are links to the settlement page where you can download a form to file a claim.

It was a long haul for the Mac Guild contestants stranded on Castillo Island, and a hard and enduring battle to the end! After 14 castaways, a few replacements, and countless challenges to tax the wits, patience and Mac knowledge of the would-be survivors, a winner was finally declared. Trace the footsteps of the contest, and see what the winner went through over a year and half before being crowned the Sole Survivor of Castillo. To honor the castaways, and to pay homage to all past Mac Guild contestants who sacrificed a little dignity for the sake of competing in challenges, look for the host of Castillo adorned in merchandise from both of the original tribes.

2006 has certainly been an interesting year for Apple fans. The latest flurry of activity surrounds Boot Camp, a tool from Apple that will allow you to install and run Windows XP alongside OS X on an Intel-based Mac in a dual-boot configuration. Read this article for a full editorial write-up on the prospects, by Guild member Dan Schneider.

Recent MacSurvivor contestant, Diane Love, was given the opportunity to give away an Apress book that she reviewed during the contest. Rather than just select a member to give it to, she decided to conduct a special iPod Naming contest. After receiving a number of entries for iPod names, she posted her results and selected a winner.

Mac Guild Staff Writer, and recent MacSurvivor contestant, Diane Love, has put together an article on how she used Bryce to create a map in the MacSurvivor contest. The article features her step by step approach in creating the map using Photoshop and Bryce, and includes a helicopter tour movie of the island (also created with Bryce).