trust it or not , last week marked the first time that I spent the entire calendar week at Macworld Expo . In years by , I ’ve flown in for the keynote , continue through whatever conference academic term I was slat to address at , and then fly home . This class , though , I got to take in the whole experience , and I must say , it was a great clip … but also a great deal of oeuvre ! As a fellow presenter tell me one afternoon , “ I love it when Expo rolls into town … and I love it just as much when the week is over ! ”
I took a bonny number of pictures during the week , most of which are incredibly slow . That has n’t stopped me , though , from compiling them intoa photograph album . Do n’t say you were n’t warned .
The first thing I note was that the show floor seemed much more crowded and lively than it was last year . Some of that , to be certain , is because show organizers had everything in Moscone Center ’s South Hall ; last yr , the games and smaller developer were in the north hall . But even with that adjustment , I in person cogitate the show ’s attendance was up greatly over late geezerhood .
Clearly , a bombastic part of that is due to theiPod . Despite Steve Jobs ’ insistence that this was , after all , Mac world , iPod - related stuff was everywhere . I saw carrying case and speaker systems and sparking plug - in adapter for any feature you might think of , including blinking igniter to use when running with an iPod at dark ( now there ’s a good thing to be doing ; anyone up for aDarwin award ? ) . The iPod is clearly a very , very bragging business . I wonder when we ’ll see the first iPod Expo ?
Beyond the world of iPod , there were some interesting unexampled software system apps ( the beta variant ofTypeIt4Melooks like a worthy challenger to my current faveTextpander ) , but no real “ oh my gosh that ’s awful ! ” products . The Apple John Wilkes Booth was incessantly throng , and both the Intel Macs look like achiever . In special , theMacBook Pro(not yet sure about that name ) was amazingly flying compared to my 12 - inch PowerBook G4/1.33GHz . I ’m tempt , but my current laptop is match my needs just all right . By the way , I recordeda short movie ( 3.9MB)of the Modern magnetised hoopla in action . It ’s not the great film ( I was trying to enter with about 500 the great unwashed pushing and shoving to hand the machine ) , but you get a unspoilt sensory faculty for how it works . I have intercourse some people are flighty because this is yet another unique office adapter for an Apple laptop … but after too many yank power cord on mine , I think it ’s borderline genius .
I spoke on Thursday morning , giving my “ Best of Mac OS X Hints ” presentation . I ’ve been giving this talk of the town ( with mostly unexampled tips every fourth dimension ) for a few years now , and this year had the high attending by far — more than 450 people were in the room ! Click the image at left for a short ( 1.5 megabyte ) QuickTime motion-picture show of what it see like from the podium . This was shoot before the elbow room got completely full , but it was still quite exciting ( and more than a routine scary ! ) to be stick out in front of so many folks . If you were one of them , I hope I did n’t bear you too badly !
I also participated in the MacBraniac quiz show challenge , where our team ( myself , Jason Snell , Rich Siegel of BareBones , and Tonya Egnst of TidBITS ) defeated the contender ( Dori Smith , Sandee Cohen , Andy Ihnatko , and Scott Knaster ) in ‘ extra time ’ ( we were tied after all the standard query ) . This mean that I ’m now undefeated in MacBraniac challenge , having also win ( in overtime again ) this retiring summer in Boston . Through both competitions , which believably means about 50 questions or so , I can proudly state I ’ve suffice maybe four of them all by myself — clearly the key to bring home the bacon is getting chosen as a team extremity by a really bright team ! If you ’ve never seen one of these , they ’re well worth the sentence ; Chris Breen does a corking job picking questions that make us see like we do n’t sleep with anything , and the teams , judges , and audience have a great clip with the favorable competition . This twelvemonth , there was even some free cake for members of the audience .
And now , something not really related to the show . Thehotel I stayed atfeatured the most amazing vending machine I ’ve ever seen — here ’s a small portion of it . But alternatively of trying to describe it myself , it just so hap that Mathew Honanwrote about this very machineWednesday for Playlist . Check out his writeup for all the detail . Suffice it to say that , if you ’re ever near the Argent ( on Third Street , two blocks north of Moscone ) , it ’s deserving a visit to the pressure group to see this auto .
In closing , it was a great week , but I ’m quite happy to be back home now . While fell home , I was engage in one of my favorite in - escape time waster , assume pictures of clouds out the windowpane . When I got home and check the images , I find the effigy you see at right . The window did a great chore of spreading the sun ’s rays , leading to a middling surrealistic ikon of the tasteful cloud . If you like the pic , feel free to download either the1920×1200 widescreen versionor the1024×768 version(just rightfield for my 12 - inch PowerBook ) . I do n’t propose to be a neat photographer , and the picture was taken with a comparatively childlike consumer camera ( Canon PowerShot SD400 ) , but I really like the way it amount out .
I guess I could tot up up the calendar week by articulate I was most excited by the first two Intel machines Apple has hustle out , and I ca n’t wait to see what the next 12 months bring . Based on what we ’ve ascertain so far , I think by this prison term next year , the overall speed of the Mac chopine will have taken a gigantic footstep forward .
