| If you’re reading this, odds are you’re using a Windows PC. Unless that is you’re on a Mac. Short for Macintosh. Apple that is. And if you’re on a Mac, odds are you may have heard of this little event called the Macworld Expo. It is everything Apple and then some. This is the place to see all of the latest and greatest. For some, it is the one place where you can go bad mouth Microsoft and the Windows world safe in the knowledge that you won’t be alone. This comes to life twice a year. San Francisco in January, New York or Boston in the summer. There have been similar events in elsewhere, but these two are the most well known. San Francisco tends to be a true draw, as many Mac users tend to be the Left Coast type. That’s not to say these folks don’t come from elsewhere. You’ll see nametags with home cities from all over the world. It’s a place where the faithful all come to worship at the altar of the black turtleneck shirt. All I can think is that Steve Jobs must have gotten a patent issued on the look some time back. It’s a place where more geegaws and gadgets find their way into waiting hands than a buck for a beer from the street folks. I give Iomega (maker of the Zip drive) credit for keeping the ball rolling with their slogan buttons. I still treasure one that reads, “Star Trek was a documentary.” It’s a place where grown men and women will fly into the air in hopes of grabbing a t-shirt for a product being hawked by a jaded sales force manning a carpeted space, a.k.a. “The Booth”. If these people are really lucky, that whale of a client will come by and snap up a gross of units. More often, it’s an excuse to party after the show hours and call it “sales promotions” on your expense reports. It’s a place where the Mac geeks sneak off to from those high school or junior college classes. I know. I was one of them once upon a time. It’s a place to renew old friendships. I’ve been going to Macworld with a couple of friends off and on over the last seven or eight years. We started way back with the Apple II line and moved along as budgets allowed. We’re both happy with our various Power PC Mac’s, but drool over the possibility of winning a new and updated system. One of them, managed to do just that a couple of years back, in the heydays of the Mac clone systems. He scored a big win at a vendor booth and put down a fair chunk of cash on a new system. Someone always manages to take home that shiny new toy. Maybe this year it will be this guy… This year, thanks to my presence here at Jim Hill Media, I’m off to explore this world as a member of the fourth estate. Starting off with the Keynote address on Tuesday, January 7, I’ll have tales to share with you all in future columns. More from the floor at Macworld to come. Some links of note: http://www.macworldexpo.com http://www.apple.com http://www.macaddict.com Roger goes way back as an Apple user. His first was an Apple ][e — complete with the green monochrome monitor. Good enough it was way back when, and it brought him into the online world on AOL. When AOL was an all Apple and Mac service. The world ended the day they let the PC crowd online… From 1989 through 2000, he spent way too many hours as one of AOL’s Remote Staff members overseeing the TV Viewers forums, message boards and chat rooms. Some of the shows he helped create areas for included X-Files, Space: Above & Beyond, Quantum Leap and Star Trek in it’s various incarnations. Today, he’s got the Mac museum at home. There’s the Mac SE 30, the Mac ][si, Powerbook Duo 230 and 280 (with the Duo Dock), a Power PC 6500 and now he’s using a bondi blue iBook to write this column. Rumors have a Mac G4 cube lurking in the future. Now getting them all networked together… Oh, and Roger’s wife is a confirmed Windows PC user who screams at it at least twice every day. Roger can’t recall the last time one of his Macs crashed. If you’re reading this, odds are you’re using a Windows PC. Unless that is you’re on a Mac. Short for Macintosh. Apple that is. And if you’re on a Mac, odds are you may have heard of this little event called the Macworld Expo. It is everything Apple and then some. This is the place to see all of the latest and greatest. For some, it is the one place where you can go bad mouth Microsoft and the Windows world safe in the knowledge that you won’t be alone. This comes to life twice a year. San Francisco in January, New York or Boston in the summer. There have been similar events in elsewhere, but these two are the most well known. San Francisco tends to be a true draw, as many Mac users tend to be the Left Coast type. That’s not to say these folks don’t come from elsewhere. You’ll see nametags with home cities from all over the world. It’s a place where the faithful all come to worship at the altar of the black turtleneck shirt. All I can think is that Steve Jobs must have gotten a patent issued on the look some time back. It’s a place where more geegaws and gadgets find their way into waiting hands than a buck for a beer from the street folks. I give Iomega (maker of the Zip drive) credit for keeping the ball rolling with their slogan buttons. I still treasure one that reads, “Star Trek was a documentary.” It’s a place where grown men and women will fly into the air in hopes of grabbing a t-shirt for a product being hawked by a jaded sales force manning a carpeted space, a.k.a. “The Booth”. If these people are really lucky, that whale of a client will come by and snap up a gross of units. More often, it’s an excuse to party after the show hours and call it “sales promotions” on your expense reports. It’s a place where the Mac geeks sneak off to from those high school or junior college classes. I know. I was one of them once upon a time. It’s a place to renew old friendships. I’ve been going to Macworld with a couple of friends off and on over the last seven or eight years. We started way back with the Apple II line and moved along as budgets allowed. We’re both happy with our various Power PC Mac’s, but drool over the possibility of winning a new and updated system. One of them, managed to do just that a couple of years back, in the heydays of the Mac clone systems. He scored a big win at a vendor booth and put down a fair chunk of cash on a new system. Someone always manages to take home that shiny new toy. Maybe this year it will be this guy… This year, thanks to my presence here at Jim Hill Media, I’m off to explore this world as a member of the fourth estate. Starting off with the Keynote address on Tuesday, January 7, I’ll have tales to share with you all in future columns. More from the floor at Macworld to come. Some links of note: http://www.macworldexpo.com
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Greetings from north of Cupertino
