Even though many user groups, especially in the U.S., are on summer hiatus, others are on top of things with interesting and timely presentations for their members, as evidenced by this week’s “MUG Event Calendar.”

Digital artist Bert Monroy will visit an Illinois group, there will be a Smile On My Mac product showcase presented at a Kansas meeting, and Lion demos and presentations abound, scheduled for New Zealand, Australia, California, Colorado and beyond.

“The MUG Event Calendar” can be found at The MUG Center (http://www.mugcenter.com), an online resource for Mac User Groups. MUGs are good places for making new friends in the Mac community, improving your computing skills, finding solutions to technical problems, and perhaps locating a good deal on used hardware. For more info on MUGs, and to find the location of the one nearest you, go to Apple’s MUG page (http://www.apple.com/usergroups/).