Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Macworld Expo 2008, Wednesday


Another day at Macworld Expo. Picked up a new battery for my iPod and wandered the floor in the South Hall. Won a iPod holder from Kensington, had an eyeball QSO with Lee Imber, WW2DX while he demoed the glance.net screen sharing software/service.

Also sat in on the GeekBrief TV taping at the xtrain booth. Watched as Cali Lewis interviewed Patrick Norton then later with Veronica Belmont. Roger Chang was also in the audience.

Afterwards I attended a couple of the Tech sessions in the afternoon.

More Pictures available at Picasa.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Macworld Expo prediction results

Well, I guess I mostly suck at Macintosh prognostication.

Blu-ray, no embracing, no announcements.

Update to AppleTV. Well they are updating it but now how I had hoped. It is still a good thing and if I had paid a bit more attention about the iTunes Movie rental indicators I might have gotten more of this right.

No 3G iPhone. Ok, I got this right but duh, who didn't see that. The update for the iPhone and the iPod Touch is pretty cool and some of the technology behind the mapping is interesting.

Lighter weight MacBook. I pretty much missed this. I knew if anyone could pull this off Apple could and I was pretty sure Apple would announce something. I was pretty sure that the optical drive would be external. I had mentioned to a colleague that I thought that Apple would introduce an external optical drive but I had holed it would also work on an AppleTV and include Blu-ray capability. I really missed it on the Newton size device. Maybe next year.

I guess I will have to watch the net a bit more this year and try again next year.

Picassa Photo Album

Photocast RSS feed

Flying, it's for the birds.

Have I mentioned how much I dislike flying. Maybe if I lost weight I would be more comfortable on the plane and wouldn't dislike it so much. But I can remember 100 pounds ago and I was not comfortable in coach seats. Now even coach is segregated. They call it Economy Plus on United. An extra "5 inches of legroom." A 5 inch change it seating pitch should be noticeable. I could not see it. Even so an open row is an open row. Someone should be allowed to move to it to make everyone a little more comfortable. Putting two 300 pound plus guys next to each othe in a CRJ700 is insane. The Window seat is really only good for children, people under about 5' 5" tall, or a couple that want/don't mind snuggling up to one another. In other words there is no shoulder room. The fuselage curves in about 7-8 inches in 2 feet. So while I had a reasonable amount of hip room with no armrest next to the window I was forced to lean toward the seat next to me. This made it uncomfortable for both of us. and just 3 rows forward there was an empty row. But NOOOO! that seating was for economy plus passengers.

I have learned that since 9/11 and the latest rules implemented by the TSA to wear the minimum amount of clothing and "accessories" until after you pass through security. Also slip on shoes are a must. With getting to the airport the recommended two or more hours in advance of your flight and whatever travel time involved with getting there, having the airline call you two hours before the flight to tell you the aircraft for your first leg is delayed and ten minutes latter call to tell you that the second leg has been canceled is not very helpful. I did not find out about this until after I got through security and finished getting dressed.

Did you know that if you wait until the last minute to get your tickets to fly you will spend an extra hour going through security? It seems that the airlines have a code they put on your boarding pass that tells the TSA that you need an extra thorough going over. So even if you purchased your ticket a month in advance and your airline cancels your flight and as a "courtesy" books you on another airline; the new airline will flag you for special screening. What is going to have to happen to reduce the flying threat level enough to get rid of these silly rules that do nothing to thwart terrorism and just continue to make things inconvenient and to reduce our freedom.

I guess if you only have carry on luggage jumping up as soon as the aircraft parks and getting in the starting blocks by the door to race up the jetway and out of the terminal makes some sense. I don't want to stay on the plane or in the airport any longer than anyone else. But if you checked baggage, You might as well take it easy. It is going to take at least 30 minutes to an hour before your luggage will show up on the baggage claim carousel.

Have I mentioned how much I detest flying these days. I guess at the moment I have the freedom of choice not to fly, but walking to London can be so inconvenient and walking to San Francisco could cut down on my productivity at work.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Getting ready for MacWorld

Gosh I wish I had posted this earlier. This week Apple announce new Mac Pro hardware. I had mentioned to my colleagues last week to hold off buying a Mac Pro until I got back from SFO. I fully expected them to announce that the quad core chip to be the baseline for the Mac Pro and here they announced it a week earlier than I expected. Obviously Steve Jobs has some announcements that he fears will overshadow this one so they put it out a week early.

I expect that Apple will embrace Blu-ray. I am expecting them to announce availability of Blue-ray drives in iMacs and Mac Pros. Getting it in a MacBook would be really cool.

I am hoping they a release an update for the AppleTV that will allow an external DVD player to be attached to the USB port to be able to play DVDs through AppleTV. One less device in the stack. With luck Apple will have a Blu-ray compatible device in the same footprint as the AppleTV.

I don't really expect them to announce the 3G iPhone unless they are ready to ship immediately. It would seem kinda dumb to announce one and then wait for several months before shipping one. Who would buy one in the mean time. Unless they dropped the price of the current one to $150-$200.

While I would love to have a lighter weight MacBook than the 5 pound beast plus another pound or two of accessories that I will be carrying to MacWorld I don't think a price or specification will make it attractive enough for me to get this year. I am not sure what Apple could bring to tablet or ultra-thin sub-notebook to make it a better seller than other brands but if anyone can Apple can. I think that they will announce something. Maybe in a size slightly larger than the Newton 2100 that includes a keyboard that can be folded out of the way. That would be cool.